End Times and Current Events

Anti-Semitism 'on the rise' say Europe's Jews
11/8/13
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-24857207

Many Jews in Europe say anti-Semitism is increasing, particularly on the internet, according to a survey by the EU's Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA).

The survey of 5,847 Jewish people said 66% of those who responded considered anti-Semitism to be a problem.

Three out of four respondents, 76%, believed anti-Semitism had increased over the past five years.

The survey was carried out in 2012 in eight countries which are home to about 90% of the EU's Jewish population.

Respondents in Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Sweden and the United Kingdom were asked to give "their opinions and perceptions on anti-Semitic trends and anti-Semitism as a problem in everyday".

They were also asked about their personal experiences and worries about their own safety and that of family members.

There was particular concern about anti-Semitism online. About three-quarters of respondents considered that to be a problem which is getting worse.

A British woman in her 50s, quoted in the survey, said she had "experienced more anti-Semitic comments" since going on Facebook "than I ever have done throughout my whole life".

She added: "This is very dispiriting. The speed at which hostile comments and misinformation can be passed around is frightening and leads to a sense of deep unease, which may not connect with the day-to-day reality of being Jewish in a diverse society."

Condemnation call
 
The survey found 29% of those surveyed had considered emigrating because of concerns about safety, with particularly high figures recorded in Hungary (48%), France (46%) and Belgium (40%).

It found one in five respondents had personally experienced at least one anti-Semitic verbal insult and/or a physical attack in the year before the survey.

Perpetrators of the most serious incidents were described as "being perceived as someone with Muslim extremist views, 27%, left-wing political views, 22%, or with right-wing views, 19%".

Respondents said the most frequent comments made by non-Jewish people in the UK were: "Israelis behave 'like Nazis' towards the Palestinians" and "Jews exploit Holocaust victimhood for their own purposes" (both 35%).

In France 52% of the Jewish people surveyed described anti-Semitism as a "very big problem" in their country, in Hungary the figure was 49%, while in the UK it was much less - 11%.

The survey showed significant differences between Western and Eastern European countries.

In Latvia, only 8% said the Israeli-Arab conflict had had a large impact on how safe they felt, but the figure rose to 28% for Germany and was as high as 73% in France.

FRA Director Morten Kjaerum said this reflected differing histories, as well as recent patterns of immigration.

"I think that there is across Europe... a traditional form of anti-Semitism that goes back in history for a long time," he said.

"But then we also see a particular sort of anti-Semitism reported by the respondents, namely the anti-Semitism which comes out of the conflict in the Middle East. And this is where you have to be careful: when do you have a legitimate critique of whatever your position may be in terms of that particular conflict and when would it be an anti-Semitic statement?"

Demand for action
 
The FRA said EU countries should work "urgently" to find effective ways to combat online anti-Semitism. It called on public figures to condemn anti-Semitic statements.

The President of the European Jewish Congress, Moshe Kantor, welcomed the survey, but said "the fact that a quarter of Jews are not able to express their Jewishness because of fear should be a watershed moment for the continent of Europe and the European Union."

"The Jewish reality in Europe is of great concern and the authorities need to deal with incidents of hate and intolerance in a holistic manner, to really combat these manifestations before it is too late.

"We would like to see concrete steps being taken, including creating legislation to specifically deal with anti-Semitism and racism, bolstering law enforcement agencies and ensure a zero-tolerance approach to anti-Semitism, even, and perhaps specifically, when opinion-shapers and decision-makers engage in these forms of hate," he said.

Pigs’ heads sent to Israel embassy, synagogue in Rome

Boxes containing pigs’ heads were sent to the Israeli embassy in Rome and the city’s synagogue, Italian media reported Saturday. The package mailed to the embassy in the wealthy Parioli area of the Italian capital was intercepted by police after other similar parcels were sent to the synagogue and the Jewish Museum of Rome, which is hosting an exhibit on the Holocaust.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/boxes-with-pigs-heads-sent-to-israel-embassy-synagogue-in-rome/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter 

Pigs’ heads sent to Israel embassy, synagogue in Rome

Boxes containing pigs’ heads were sent to the Israeli embassy in Rome and the city’s synagogue, Italian media reported Saturday. The package mailed to the embassy in the wealthy Parioli area of the Italian capital was intercepted by police after other similar parcels were sent to the synagogue and the Jewish Museum of Rome, which is hosting an exhibit on the Holocaust.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/boxes-with-pigs-heads-sent-to-israel-embassy-synagogue-in-rome/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

French Jews Migrate To Israel Citing Rising Anti-Semitism

PARIS (RNS) By any standard, David Tibi is a French success story.

The 44-year-old dentist and father of five has a thriving practice and a house in the affluent Paris suburb of Vincennes. His wife is a doctor and he is a leading member of the Jewish community and holds a senior post in its Central Consistory of Paris.

But in early July, the Tibi family will pack their bags and join the thousands of Jews now leaving France. The house has been sold. A colleague will be handling the dental practice. The family is leaving on a one-way ticket to Israel.

“If my children are to live their full Jewish identity, their future is in Israel and not in France,” Tibi said during an interview at his office in northeastern Paris, an area packed with kosher stores and restaurants. “Many Jews feel this way. There’s a massive desire to leave.”

Worldwide, immigration to Israel has stagnated and even declined. But French Jews are bucking the trend. Last year, a record 3,270 French Jews made aliyah — or immigration to Israel — a 63 percent hike from 2012. The Jewish Agency, which promotes aliyah internationally, estimates that figure could spike to 5,000 as early as this year, dramatically changing the face of Israeli immigration as well as France’s own Jewish community, the largest in Western Europe.

“For Jews today, Israel allows them to reinforce their Jewish identity,” said Ariel Kandel, who made his own aliyah from France 20 years ago and now directs the Jewish Agency in France.

A mix of factors are driving the exodus, Kandel and others say, from historical and sentimental ties — many of France’s majority Sephardic population have family in Israel — to economic ones. In January, French unemployment rose to a record 11 percent. Israel’s, by contrast, hovers at about 6 percent.

But rising anti-Semitism may be the strongest driver, manifest not only through rhetoric but also action. In 2012, a radical Islamist gunned down four people at a Jewish school in Toulouse.

More recently, two of Tibi’s children were taunted on a tram. Tibi filled out immigration papers three weeks ago, making good on a project he had contemplated for years.

“My son is always asking me why there are police in front of his Jewish school, why we need to be searched each time we go to the synagogue,” he said. “We are raising our children to live with this fear.”

What troubles Tibi most is the lack of response on the part of the French.

“Once we had one million French on the streets against anti-Semitism. Now we have three million on Facebook and Twitter who are supporting Dieudonne,” he said, referring to a controversial French comic who is known for his anti-Jewish discourse.

The Tibis have already found an apartment in the Tel Aviv suburb of Ra’anana. They have picked out schools for their children. They will have to learn Hebrew, but they will hardly feel lonely. Half a dozen other French families are flying out with them. Other friends and family live near Tel Aviv. And in his new home, Tibi said, roughly 8 percent of the population is French.

“If you go to a restaurant, they’ll hand you a menu in French,” he said. “The (Israeli) administration gives you documents in French. We had the waves of aliyahs from Ethiopia and Russia. Now it’s the aliyah of French Jews.”

The Israeli government is facilitating the French aliyah in other ways. There are draft measures to recognize French diplomas and other qualifications. At the Jewish Agency’s Paris office, brochures offer information about youth programs to Israel that attract roughly 1,000 French Jews each year. Every week, another 300 Jews attend the agency’s informational meetings about Israel, Kandel, the director, said.

“That means you have about 30,000 Jews who are thinking about moving to Israel in the next two years,” he said. “We’re not knocking on people’s doors. But if people want to, or hope to, or think of leaving, the state of Israel must be capable of delivering.”

What Israel delivers does not suit everyone. There are no statistics of Jews returning here, but some have a hard time adjusting and finding jobs in Israel.

Children of immigrants are required to serve in the military where conscription is mandatory for both young men and women. And then there’s the ongoing existential threats from Palestinians and hostile Arab neighbors.

A poster in Kandel’s office states: “We did not promise you a rose garden.”

“Life is tough in Israel,” Kandel said. “What’s new is that life is tough in France as well. So the young especially are thinking, ‘Why not take my chance in Israel?’”

Others strongly believe their roots remain in France.

“For a lot of people, being connected to Israel and having a Zionist commitment just expresses itself in going to Israel on vacation,” said Sacha Reingewirtz, president of the French Union of Jewish Students. “We’re not looking at a massive exodus.”

Paris Orthodox Rabbi Mendel Azimov is also unfazed by the departures. “I can’t say this is a general community alert,” he said. “There are half a million Jews in France and I don’t see everybody moving out.”

But Tibi, who is president of the Paris-area Jewish community, is watching the departures and listening to the talk. “It’s a snowball effect,” he said, predicting the exodus may reach 8,000 Jews a year.

The fallout is already evident, he added. Students are leaving Jewish schools. The community is searching for new leaders and reconsidering costly construction projects.

Tibi is feeling the loss in other ways. “I was born in France. I did my studies in France. I am extremely sad to leave a country that gave me a lot,” he said. “But sometimes even when you love, you have to leave.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/08/french-jews-israel_n_4748532.html

Researchers Were ‘Very Surprised’ to Discover Few Right-Wingers Sent Anti-Semitic Hate Mail, but Here’s Who Did

The author of a German study that examined thousands of anti-Semitic hate messages told an Israeli newspaper that she was “very surprised” to discover that only 3 percent came from those described as members of the political “far-right.”

Monika Schwarz-Friesel, a linguistics professor at the Technical University of Berlin, and her team read 14,000 letters and emails addressed to the Israeli embassy in Berlin and to Germany’s Central Council of Jews, Haaretz reported.

The results were summarized in her book, “The Language of Hostility Towards Jews in the 21st Century,” which was published in German and is due out in English next year.

“I wanted to find out how modern anti-Semites think, feel and communicate,” Schwarz-Friesel told Haaretz.

The study concluded that a majority of the messages – 60 percent – were sent by educated Germans, including university professors and priests.  :o say it isnt so, not the Liberals..  ::)

That finding shattered the research team’s initial assumptions. Because they are a bunch of Liberals them selves..

“At first, we thought that most of the letters would be sent by right-wing extremists,” Schwarz-Friesel said. “But I was very surprised to discover that they were actually sent by people from the social mainstream – professors, Ph.D.s, lawyers, priests, university and high-school students.”

Efraim Zuroff, Israel office director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish human rights group, told TheBlaze “there’s no question that there is an undercurrent [of anti-Semitism] in respectable German society and it’s very often people who would be shocked to be called anti-Semites.”

“This animus against the Jews exists, and this study clearly shows it,” said Zuroff, whom Time magazine described as “the world’s most prominent Nazi hunter.”

“The problem is not the extreme right and neo-Nazis because they are so marginal in German society … the problem is in respectable German society that normally doesn’t accept overt anti-Semitism,” Zuroff said.

Asked about the researchers’ “surprised” reaction to their findings, Zuroff said: “It’s very simple. They think that they share common values with liberal, humanistic, ostensibly sane Germans but part of problem is that some of those people have deeply embedded anti-Semitism that sometimes manifests itself in [hate] letters.”

The letters examined were sent between 2002 and 2012. The study was conducted jointly with American historian Jehuda Reinharz.

“We found that there is hardly any difference in the semantics of highly educated anti-Semites and vulgar extremists and neo-Nazis,” Schwarz-Friezel told the American Jewish news site the Forward in December. “The difference lies only in style and formal rhetoric, but the concepts are the same.”

In addition to the 14,000 letters sent in Germany, 2,000 additional messages received by Israeli embassies around Europe were also reviewed.

Here are samples of content included in some of the messages, as quoted in Haaretz and in the Forward:

    • “Is it possible that the excessive violence in Israel, including the murder of innocent children, corresponds to the long tradition of your people?”

    • “For the last 2,000 years, you’ve been stealing land and committing genocide.”

    • “You Israelis … shoot cluster bombs over populated areas and accuse people who criticize such actions of anti-Semitism. That’s typical of the Jews!”

The researchers found that many of the letters equated the actions of the Israel Defense Forces to the Nazi genocide of the Jews.

Notably, many of the letter-writers were not ashamed of their language and often included their names, addresses and professions, which helped the research team validate their political affiliation, according to the Forward.

The study reported that 80 percent of the letters were anti-Israel, often masking anti-Semitic feelings.

“Today, it’s already impossible to distinguish between anti-Semitism and anti-Israelism. Modern anti-Semites have turned ‘the Jewish problem’ into ‘the Israeli problem.’ They have redirected the ‘final solution’ from the Jews to the State of Israel, which they see as the embodiment of evil,” Schwarz-Friesel told Haaretz.

The researchers counted as anti-Semitic only those messages that described German Jews as not being truly German and blamed German Jews for Israel’s actions.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/02/27/researchers-were-very-surprised-to-discover-few-right-wingers-sent-anti-semitic-hate-mail-heres-who-did/

Hungary: Jewish graves spray-painted with swastikas

A Jewish cemetery in the city of Tatabánya in Hungary was vandalized on Thursday, as tombstones were spray-painted with swastikas and writings reading "rotten Jews" and "there was never a Holocaust, but there will be one."

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4499242,00.html

Sharp rise in French Jews leaving for Israel

The number of French Jews emigrating to Israel rose nearly four-fold in the first quarter of the year and could touch a record in 2014, a Jewish organisation said Monday.

The Jewish Agency for Israel, a global body responsible for the immigration and absorption of Jews into Israel, said 1,407 people left France for Israel between January and March against 353 people a year earlier.

"This phenomenon is speeding up" said Ariel Kandel, the head of the Jewish Agency's French chapter.

"We will not finish the year with four times more the number than in 2013 but if the current rhythm continues, there will be more than 5,000 French people leaving for Israel, something that has never happened since its creation in 1948," he said.

Kandel told AFP that the reasons for the hike in numbers were a "climate of anti-Semitism" and the prevailing gloomy economic situation in France.

France's Jewish community is one of the largest in Europe and pegged at around 500,000.

The number of French Jews leaving for Israel has been growing steadily. A total of 1,907 left in 2012 and it rose to 3,280 in 2013.

More than three million people have emigrated to Israel since 1948, including some 90,000 from France.

http://news.yahoo.com/sharp-rise-french-jews-leaving-israel-174124468.html

One in four adults worldwide are anti-Semitic, survey says

The survey included 102 countries representing 88 percent of the world population, and asked if 11 traditionally anti-Semitic attitudes were true or false. Those stereotypes include whether Jewish people have excessive power over international markets and the global media, whether they are about only "their own kind," and whether "Jews are responsible for most of the world's wars."   

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2014/05/14/One-in-four-adults-worldwide-are-anti-Semitic-survey-says/7841400088017/?spt=sec&or=tn

European Parliament set to usher in first neo-Nazis
German Jews shocked at EU success of far right, including local self-described ‘national socialist’ faction

BRUSSELS — Though no stranger to controversy or diatribe, the European Parliament is set to usher in its first fully-fledged neo-Nazis members, from Germany and Greece.

With around 300,000 votes at the European elections the neo-Nazi National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD) was expected to claim one of the country’s 96 seats in the new Parliament, in a historical ground-breaker.

A recent change in German electoral laws, scrapping all minimum thresholds, paved the way for the march into parliament of the NPD, which has 6,000 members.

It describes itself as “national socialist,” just like Germany’s Nazis in the 1930s, and is openly xenophobic and anti-Semitic so a group of German regional governments have tried to have it banned for propagating racism.

Meanwhile, with almost all ballots counted in Greece, the neo-Nazi “Golden Dawn” party is claiming over nine percent of the vote, which would net it three seats in the 751-member Parliament.

Golden Dawn was founded in the 1980s by Nikos Michaloliakos, an open admirer of Adolf Hitler. In 2012, Michaloliakos publicly denied the responsibility of Nazis in the mass-murder of six million Jews.

By harnessing resentment over EU-driven austerity measures imposed on Greece, Golden Dawn ran third in the European vote held on Sunday, behind the Coalition of the Radical Left and the center-right New Democracy Party.

In June 2012, six of its 18 MPs in the Greek parliament, including Michaloliakos, were detained by police on charges of belonging to a criminal organisation after the killing of an anti-fascist musician.

Golden Dawn now counts 16 MPs in the Greek parliament, after two MPs left. One of those MPs now sits on the cross-benches, the other is in jail.

The leader of Germany’s Jewish community denounced the gains made by far-right parties and urged democratic forces to block their path and defend European values.

Dieter Graumann, the president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, said the extremist parties performed “shockingly well”, as feared, in Sunday’s European parliamentary vote.

Graumann pointed to France, Hungary and Greece, saying in a statement: “Right-wing MPs are now coming into the European Parliament from all over Europe in order to implement their anti-European and extremist course.”

“Democratic parties are now called on to curb this way of thinking and to defend and maintain European values,” Graumann said.

He also said that the “specter of anti-Semitism” had become a “brutal reality” after a gunman shot dead four people at the Jewish Museum in Brussels Saturday.

“Such a thing can never be accepted and this message should be the very first which emanates from the new European Parliament,” Graumann said.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said he was deeply shocked over the attack.

“It goes without saying that in every regard and from every conceivable perspective, it’s completely unacceptable what happened there,” Steinmeier’s spokesman told reporters Monday.

Graumann described as “intolerable” the winning of one seat in the parliament by the extremist anti-immigrant NDP of Germany.

Racism and anti-Semitism must have no place in Europe, Graumann warned.

Read more: European Parliament set to usher in first neo-Nazis | The Times of Israel http://www.timesofisrael.com/european-parliament-set-to-usher-in-first-neo-nazis/#ixzz32v1bZEKs

Just is just from what I've OBSERVED over the course of my lifetime(again, just MY OWN personal observations) - getting into any kind of witchcraft can open the doors for just that...deception into thinking the Jews are (somehow)these evil people ruining the planet. No, I'm not just talking about pagan practices witches, freemasons, new agers, etc do - there's just MANY types of other forms - for example, television. Yes, I watch a bit of my share, but it IS a trojan horse, and too much of it will really soften up your brains(as well as other forms of entertainment like being in a movie theater alot, rock music, etc). And don't forget about those perverted bible versions that push witchcraft(instead of condemn it) - no wonder why the Apostate Church buys into replacement theology now.

And look at some of these cults like Theosophy - Blavatsky HATED the Jews.(and Hitler was a student of Blavatsky)

Only a Third of the World Believes in the Holocaust

Forty-six percent of the planet's population has never heard of theHolocaust.  A third of those who have believe it is a myth or exaggeration.  As a result, only 33 percent of the world is aware of the Holocaust and believes it has been accurately described by history.

The Anti-Defamation League discovered this data when it recently polled 53,000 adults in 102 countries, representing 88.4 percent of the world's adult population.  According to their surveys, 1.09 billion adults worldwide are deeply infected with anti-Semitic attitudes.  That's one in four.  Not surprisingly, anti-Semitism is worst in the Middle East and North Africa, where 74 percent of the population harbors antagonism toward the Jews.

Anti-Semitism is lowest in the Americas (19 percent) and Oceania (14 percent).  However, these numbers are still far too high.  If there is good news, it is that the more people know Jews, the less anti-Semitic they are.  Where there is a larger Jewish population, 22 percent are anti-Semitic; where there is a smaller Jewish population, the number rises to 28 percent.  Of the 26 percent who are considered anti-Semitic, 70 percent have never actually met a Jewish person.

On a recent study tour in Israel, I was asked by a participant why I thought the Jews have faced such prejudice over the centuries.  On the face of it, we wouldn't expect their race to be so persecuted.  They have never exceeded 3.5 percent of the American population, but have produced 37 percent of our Nobel Laureates.  The Jewish people have long been on the forefront of economic advance.  Israel is the only true democracy in the Middle East and our best friend in this vitriolic part of the world.

rest: http://www.christianheadlines.com/columnists/denison-forum/only-a-third-of-the-world-believes-in-the-holocaust.html

And don't forget about all of that propaganda over how the number of Jews killed in those concentration camps were somehow overestimated by millions. Even Ronald Reagan pushed this idea...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIqRnLQ2GCY

World Sides With Evil as Global Anti-Semitism Rises

As Muslims in France attack Jews at a memorial service at a synagogue, as anti-Semitic protesters in Los Angeles attack pro-Israel ralliers with sticks, the Obama administration and the French government and international institutions like the United Nations proclaim moral equivalence between Israel and its murderous enemies. This is the world in which we now live: a world that proclaims that those who protect their rocket launchers with children are morally equal to those who protect their children by blowing up rocket launchers.

So this conflict will continue. Those who decry eternal conflict between good and evil must take sides with either good or evil. And those who are impartial between good and evil side with evil.

There are those, like Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who know this – Harper stated over the weekend, “Canada is unequivocally behind Israel. We support its right to defend itself, by itself, against these terror attacks, and urge Hamas to immediately cease their indiscriminate attacks on innocent Israeli civilians.” And there are those, like Barack Obama, who continue to call for de-escalation, and thereby prolong the conflict.

Those who state that the conflict between good and evil is a “cycle of violence” help continue that cycle of violence. The conflict between good and evil is interminable, unless good wins, or unless evil vanquishes it.

http://www.truthrevolt.org/commentary/shapiro-world-sides-evil-global-anti-semitism-rises

http://www.dw.de/growing-opposition-to-israel-in-germany/a-17800567
Growing opposition to Israel in Germany

As pro-Gaza demonstrations with anti-Jewish sentiments spread throughout Europe, a public debate in Germany aims to draw a clear line between criticism of Israeli politics and hatred of Jews.

"Berlin police cower before Jew-haters," proclaimed a headline in the Berlin newspaper "Tagesspiegel" - and this line has been posted numerous times on social networking sites. It was reported that a group of Arabs shouted "Jew, Jew, cowardly pig, come out and fight alone" at a recent demonstration and police officers did not interfere.

In many European cities, what began as peaceful protests turned into outpourings of anti-Jewish sentiments and violence against counter-demonstrators. The situation became particularly heated in France, where street fights broke out between protestors and police in front of synagogues over the weekend. In Berlin, meanwhile, state security authorities have launched an investigation against a Muslim preacher from the Al-Nur mosque who posted a video on YouTube calling for murder of Jews.

Germany's special role

Yakov Hadas-Handelsman, Israel's ambassador to Germany since 2012, has expressed indignation and concern over the incidents.

"We have nothing against demonstrations or against freedom of expression - that's the core of democracy," Hadas-Handelsman told DW in an interview. "But when, as happened this weekend, it leads to violence against the police or against pro-Israeli demonstrators, then it is unacceptable. I think Germans should be worried by that, because you also hear anti-Semitic slogans like 'Jews into the gas' - in Germany?"

He added that Germany needed to consider how to deal with anti-Jewish protests of this kind.

Politicians from nearly all German political parties have condemned the hostile displays. However, at this stage, the German government does not see a reason to raise alarm. According to a government spokesperson, everything is being done to protect Jewish institutions.

Hadas-Handelsman finds the violent protests unacceptable

The Gaza conflict has stirred up public opinion in Europe, and it has brought Israel-hatred to Germany along with it, according to political scientist Stephan Grigat.

"You don't need great differentiation skills to be able to assert that this is straightforward anti-Semitism, in a drastic form that could also be found on the streets of Germany 70 years ago," said Grigat.

Grigat, who currently teaches at the Jewish Studies Institute at the University of Vienna, does not find the latest developments in Germany surprising. He pointed out that major demonstrations also took place during the confrontation between Israel and Hamas in 2012.

"However, in those years it was mostly people who identified with left-wing politics and who expressed harsh and often inappropriate criticism towards Israel," explained Grigat, adding that the current demonstrators are mostly members of Islamist groups. "Many of the participants openly express support for Hamas, Lebanon's Hezbollah or Islamic jihad."

From his perspective, there is a perfidious tactic behind the Islamists' campaign: "They use photos of dead civilians in Gaza to attach the 'Israel the child killer' image to their propaganda crusade in typical anti-Semitic fashion."

Another new factor in the latest protests is the "pronounced aggression" - and the fact that it is possible to mobilize several thousand people in a short time.

Different from other conflicts?

Grigat has also observed a growing anti-Israel stance in mainstream German society. And he finds that the term "Israel-criticism" alone reveals a lot about the negative sentiment. After all, he said, nobody speaks of "Japan-criticism" or "Sweden-criticism" when they do not approve of something the Japanese or Swedish government does.

"This expression shows what all this is really about: not reasonable criticism of individual decisions made by the Israeli government, but plain resentment of the existence of the Jewish state," said Grigat.

Whoever demonstrates in the street to show solidarity with the Palestinian victims should ask themselves why they don't do the same during other conflicts, added Grigat. "You really need to ask the question why 200 dead Palestinians are enough to send 10,000 people into the streets but nobody seems interested when 100,000 people are killed in Syria."

The anti-Israel demonstrations in France have been particularly violent

There is also a heated debate on social media sites about the concerns about dead and injured Palestinians. Many have observed, similarly to Grigat, that the Gaza crisis has been exploited by some for political purposes. One Twitter user wrote: "When I was against the war in Iraq, I shouted, 'Stop the war in Iraq.' If you are against the war in the Middle East, why are you calling 'Down with Israel'?"

But another Twitter user posed the question, "At what point can you call it genocide without being accused of anti-Semitism?" A third user said "I can very well oppose anti-Semitism during German protests and Israel's attacks against Gaza at the same time."

Jewish criticism of Israeli politics

Rolf Verleger, a Jew and former board member of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, places most of the blame for the current mood on the Israeli government. In a recent interview on German radio, he pointed out that the Gaza Strip had come to resemble a giant prison and said it should be possible for a person to express criticism of Israel's Gaza policy without being branded an anti-Semite.

He also cannot understand it when German politicians are reluctant to criticize Israel based on German history. "What do my murdered ancestors have to do with the injustice perpetrated in the Middle East right now?" asked Verleger. "You can't just permit injustice to continue because of horrible things that happened in the past."

More protests likely

Many Germans see things the same way. In a recent survey by the "Stern" magazine, more than half of respondents place the blame for the conflict on both Israel and Hamas - and 86 percent believe that Germany should not publically stand on the Israeli side.

In the meantime, pro-Gaza demonstrations are set to continue in Germany and other European countries. They have a good chance of reaching a high point on Quds Day, which is used each year as an occasion for anti-Israel demonstrations around the world as it calls for the "liberation" of Jerusalem from "Zionist occupiers."

Netherlands: Muslim protesters scream “Death to all Jews”

“A spokesman for Van Aartsen told local broadcaster Omroep West no boundaries had been overstepped.” Europe, under the influence of its massive influx of Muslim immigrants, seems eager to travel down the same road it took in the 1930′s. We have seen similar genocidal chants recently in France and Germany. Will European authorities at any point put at stop to this, or will they just continue with their policies of appeasement and surrender until it is far too late?

“The Hague mayor urged to get tough after anti-Jewish chanting at rally,” Dutch News, July 25, 2014 (thanks to Fjordman):

    The Hague’s mayor Jozias van Aartsen is being urged to get tough on anti-Jewish demonstrators after people were heard chanting ‘death to Jews’ at a protest rally in the city on Thursday evening.

    During the rally, in which some of the 100 protesters carried pro-Isis flags, Muslim youngsters were heard to shout ‘death to all Jews’, news magazine Elsevier reports.

    Esther Voet of the Israel information centre CIDI said on Twitter: ‘people who made themselves unrecognisable, Isis flags, death to Jews and journalists take to safety. The Netherlands 2014.’

    Police

    Despite the anti-Jewish sentiment in some of the speeches, the police only got involved when a female journalist was verbally attacked by some of the demonstrators, the Telegraph says.

    Many of the demonstrators had covered their faces – which is now illegal in Dutch law.

    A spokesman for Van Aartsen told local broadcaster Omroep West no boundaries had been overstepped. ‘I have received no signals that was the case,’ the spokesman said.

    However, the public prosecution department said in a statement on Friday afternoon it would be examining footage of the rally with an interpreter to assess if the law had been broken.

    Earlier this month, Jewish groups met Van Aartsen after participants at another anti-Israel demonstration carried banners equating Israel with the Nazis.

    Jewish organisations said they wanted to know why he did not take tough action against the ‘spreading of hatred and calls to violence’.

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2014/07/netherlands-muslim-protesters-scream-death-to-all-jews?utm_source=Jihad+Watch+Daily+Digest&utm_campaign=d9e34c642e-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_ffcbf57bbb-d9e34c642e-123466605

Paris bans pro-Palestinian protest after recent violence: police

 French police have banned a protest against Israel's Gaza offensive that was due to take place in Paris on Saturday, following several similar rallies that turned violent.

The ban, announced by police on Friday, comes in the wake of clashes earlier this month at pro-Palestinian demonstrations, in which some protesters shouted anti-Semitic slogans and fought with police.

Two of those rallies had been banned but went ahead anyway.

Following Friday's announcement, French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve appealed on organisers to cancel the rally.

"I urge the organisers to abandon the event on Saturday," he told AFP, accusing them of taking a "high-risk path" if they went ahead.

But a lawyer representing the organisers of the rally said they had lodged a legal challenge against the ruling.

rest: http://news.yahoo.com/paris-bans-pro-palestinian-protest-recent-violence-police-003036347.html

BBC To Israeli Minister: "Please Don't Show Picture Of Synagogue Terror Victim"
“Sir, uh, we don’t want to actually see that picture. If you can take that down.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=24zM_glrVVU

On Tuesday, Israel's Jewish Home Minister Naftali Bennett was being interviewed by the BBC about the terrorist attack in a Jerusalem synagogue. When Bennett tried to humanize the massacre by showing a picture of one of the victims, the interviewer said, "We don't want to see the picture," and asked the minister to take the picture down.

About an hour and a half after two terrorists slaughtered four worshipers in a Jerusalem synagogue, Naftali Bennett appeared on the BBC to discuss the attack. At one point he raised a picture of one of the victims (below), saying, "This individual came this morning to pray..." Then he was cut off by the BBC interviewer: “Sir, uh, we don’t want to actually see that picture. If you can take that down.”

(http://www.truthrevolt.org/sites/default/files/images/terror-har-nof(2).jpg)

 Avoiding pictures of the dead is not a BBC policy, which you can see from this video example below, where they broadcasted pictures of the Palestinian dead during the recent Operation Protective Edge.

Perhaps the BBC has a problem with someone trying to humanize Jewish victims of terrorism.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=aqI4DOilySg

http://www.truthrevolt.org/news/bbc-israeli-ministe-please-dont-show-picture-synagogue-terror-victim

Anti-Semitic incidents on rise in France, says minister

 Anti-Semitic threats and incidents have more than doubled so far this year in France, said the interior minister at a rally on Sunday to protest a violent attack on a young Jewish couple.

Three men were detained by police and appeared before an investigative judge on Wednesday in relation to the day-time home invasion in the Paris suburb of Creteil in which a 19-year-old woman was raped.

Her 21-year-old boyfriend, who was tied up during the robbery, said the men targeted the apartment because they knew the residents were Jewish and believed there would be money and valuables inside.

Speaking to a crowd of several hundred protesters, France's Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said the government would defend the Jewish community with "all its force".

"We must make the fight against racism and anti-Semitism a national cause," he said.

France has the largest Jewish population in Europe, having grown by nearly half since World War Two to total some 550,000 Jews, according to the community's umbrella group CRIF.

But violent incidents like the murders of three Jewish children and a rabbi by Islamist militant gunman Mohamed Merah in 2012, and clashes at pro-Palestinian rallies in Paris in July have disturbed some in the Jewish community.

In the first three months of 2014 more Jews left France for Israel than at any other time since the Jewish state was created in 1948, citing economic hardships in France's stagnating economy but also rising anti-Semitism as a factor.

Roger Cukierman, the head of Crif, called on the government to do more to address the problem.

"We feel that something has changed: it's no longer just graffiti or minor incidents, these are death threats [against the Jewish community]," he told BFM TV.

"It cannot go on like this."

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/anti-semitic-incidents-rise-france-says-minister-145904949.html

BBC director Danny Cohen: Rising UK antisemitism makes me feel more uncomfortable than ever

The director of television at the BBC has said he has “never felt so uncomfortable as a Jew in the UK” as it was revealed that antisemitic incidents in Britain hit record annual levels in 2014.

Danny Cohen used the platform of a conference in Jerusalem to express his fears over what he identified as growing levels of hostility towards Jewish communities in Britain and in other parts of Europe.

“I’ve never felt so uncomfortable being a Jew in the UK as I’ve felt in the last 12 months. And it’s made me think about, you know, is it our long-term home, actually? Because you feel it. I’ve felt it in a way I’ve never felt before,” he said.

Mr Cohen, 40, the former controller of BBC1, said levels of hatred were on the rise across Europe. “You’ve seen the number of attacks rise, you’ve seen murders in France, you’ve seen murders in Belgium. It’s been pretty grim actually,” he told an audience at Jerusalem Cinematheque at a conference addressing the ability of comedy to drive forward social change.

A native north Londoner, he said: “Having lived all my life in the UK, I’ve never felt as I do now about antisemitism in Europe.”

Although Cohen made no reference to his job in his comments, the BBC has been the target of a series of angry public protests this year from crowds critical of Israel’s actions in the recent conflict in Gaza. The broadcaster was accused of failing to fairly represent the plight and position of Palestinians in the violence, which followed Israel’s launch of Operation Protective Edge in July.

The Gaza conflict led to a sharp rise in antisemitic incidents in Britain, where the Jewish community amounts to 260,000. Following a pro-Palestinian rally in July, a group of young men drove in convoy through a Jewish part of Greater Manchester shouting “Heil Hitler” and throwing eggs and drinks cans at pedestrians. Four teenagers were charged with a physical attack on a rabbi in Gateshead. A sign saying “Child Murderers” was placed outside the Kingston Synagogue, south-west London, in August.

Vivian Wineman, of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, told The Independent that the number of recorded antisemitic incidents for 2014 was “the highest since records began”, although there has been a fall-off in recent months.

“Whilst we have much to celebrate about being Jewish in the UK, a summer filled with hostile, anti-Zionist demonstrations has clearly left its mark,” he said.

“Compared to other countries in Europe, the UK still has relatively low levels of antisemitism and it is reassuring to note that the number of recorded antisemitic incidents is returning to former levels. However we must not rest on our laurels. The Board, alongside other Jewish organisations, will continue to work together with government and others to combat this deeply concerning trend.”

Mr Cohen recently announced the BBC’s ambitious plans to mark the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz on 27 January. Holocaust Memorial Day will include a screening of the 10-hour documentary Shoah. In The Eichmann Show, Martin Freeman will play TV producer Milton Fruchtman, who covered the trial of Adolf Eichmann, an architect of the Nazi plan to exterminate Europe’s Jews. Mr Cohen’s decision to give the event high prominence has been described as a response to “growing concern about a rise in antisemitism across Europe”.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/tv-radio/bbc-director-danny-cohen-rising-uk-antisemitism-makes-me-feel-more-uncomfortable-than-ever-9940985.html

'Every single French Jew I know has left Paris': Editor of Britain's Jewish Chronicle claims people are fleeing terror-hit French capital

    Stephen Pollard says terror attack on Kosher store in Paris is no 'fluke'
    'Every single French Jew I know has either left or is actively working out how to leave', he said
    Experts believe that more than 100,000 French Jews have left since 2013 
    France's Chief Rabbi has said after a number of attacks on Jews in the past year: 'Jews murdered were targeted specifically because they were Jewish'
    Policing stepped up across British Jewish areas, community body says
    Mayor's office has announced closure of shops in famous Jewish area

Jews are fleeing terror-hit Paris because of growing anti-Semitism in France, one of Britain's most influential Jewish journalists said today.

Stephen Pollard, editor of the Jewish Chronicle, spoke out after an Islamic terrorist took six people hostage and held them captive in a Kosher supermarket in the French capital.

This afternoon police ordered all shops in a famous Jewish neighborhood in central Paris to close.

The mayor's office in Paris announced the closure of shops along the Rosiers street in Paris' Marais neighborhood, in the heart of the tourist district and less than a mile away from the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo where 12 people were killed on Wednesday.

Hours before the Jewish Sabbath, the street is usually crowded with French Jews and tourists alike.

Mr Pollard said today's terror attack in Paris, linked to the massacre at the office of Charlie Hebdo, will force more French Jews to flee the country.

Many are moving to Britain or to Israel, according to a report published in the newspaper last year.

He said the fact that a terrorist had chosen to target a Jewish store was no 'fluke'.

In a series of tweets he said: 'Every single French Jew I know has either left or is actively working out how to leave'.

'So, it's a fluke that the latest target is a kosher grocer, is it?

'What's going on in France - outrages that have been getting worse for years - put our antisemitism problems in perspective'.

The hostage situation in the Porte de Vincennes part of the city is ongoing today.

But amid fears the terror attack may be linked to anti-Semitism police have also demanded that shops on Rue des Rosiers, in the Jewish quarter of Paris, to close early 'as a precaution' in case of further violence. 

18 months ago France had around 500,000 Jewish residents - the largest population in the EU - but this may now be below 400,000, Mr Pollard's newspaper said.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2903600/Every-single-French-Jew-know-left-Paris-Editor-Britain-s-Jewish-Chronicle-claims-people-fleeing-terror-hit-French-capital.html#ixzz3OPhfuHOi

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4614853,00.html
Group of new immigrants from France arrives in Israel
24 Jewish immigrants from France arrived in Israel less than a week after terror attack at kosher supermarket in Paris; among new olim is family of one of the four victims killed in the attack.
Itay Blumenthal
Published:    01.14.15, 09:26 / Israel News

A group of 24 French immigrants arrived at Israel's Ben Gurion Airport on Monday and officially made Aliyah to Israel less than a week after the terror attack at a kosher supermarket in a suburb of Paris. Among the new olim is the family of Yohan Cohen who was killed during the attack in France and was laid to rest in the Givat Shaul cemetery in Jerusalem on Tuesday afternoon.
 
Simcha Felber, the World Zionist Organization's (WZO) representative in France, says that ever since the attack there has been increased interest among the French-Jewish community in immigration to Israel. He said the WZO would assess the situation for Jews wishing to immigrate to Israel. "Only in two to three weeks will we know if this is because of the mood or because of real intentions," Felber said.
 
Simon and Odette Alfasi, that were part of the group that recently immigrated to Israel, are planning to live close to their family in Haifa. "We finally made Aliyah in order to be in our home," said Simon.
 
"We will now live close to our family and grandchildren. We are very excited and happy to see everyone more often now. What is happening now in France is a catastrophe, there are a lot more who want to immigrate and now everyone will come because of the attack that happened," said Simon.
 
Matilda Pariente also arrived in Israel on Monday with her husband. In Paris, she had a long career as a school principal. Matilda said that on the Friday of the deadly attack she was on her way to the Hyper Cacher to buy cookies when she received a phone call that forced her to head home.
 
"Everyone thought that I was in the supermarket and that something happened to me. I had a lot of luck," she said.
 
On her decision to make Aliyah to Israel Matilda said: "For four months now I've been preparing myself. I sold my house and now I'm here, happy and content. All the French understand that the situation (in France) is difficult."
 
Lor Alkoby, 23, was also part of the new immigrants from France and plans to live in Jerusalem. "It is a big change for me. I basically left everything behind: family, friends and work. I always wanted to make Aliyah to Israel because it is my country. I set a date and it was today. I'm happy I fulfilled my dream."
 
Among the new Olim is Yael Yosef, 31, who said she decided to make Aliyah because of a Zionistic outlook. "It says in the Torah that the land of Israel is ours and because of this I came here, because of the commandment from God," says Yosef, who intendeds on living in Jerusalem.
 
Yosef added that the atmosphere in France is difficult after the wave of attacks and the rising tension between Muslims and Jews. "In France there are a lot of problems and the terror is on the rise. There is no future for Jews in France because it is very scary there, and I suggest all Jews immigrate to Israel because there is no longer anything to look for in France."
 
In the coming days, according to the Jewish Agency, more French Jews will arrive in Israel to make Aliyah. Some of them will live in youth centers across Israel. "The Jewish Agency helps all Jews that request to make Aliyah to Israel and works to eliminate barriers for employment. At the same time, we are working to strengthen the Jewish community in France, with security at Jewish institutions in the country among other thing," said Chairman of the Jewish Agency Natan Sharansky.

According to statistics released by the Jewish Agency, in the past two years there has been a dramatic rise in the number of immigrants to Israel from France. For example, in 2014 a record breaking 6,600 new immigrants from France arrived in Israel compared 3,400 that arrived in 2013 and 1,920 that arrived in 2012.

http://www.algemeiner.com/2015/01/21/prospect-of-jewish-exodus-from-europe-as-grave-a-problem-as-euro-crisis-says-top-eu-official/
1/21/15
Prospect of Jewish Exodus From Europe as Grave a Problem as Euro Crisis, Says Top EU Official

The prospect of a Jewish exodus from Europe is as grave a problem as the future of the Euro currency, a senior European Union (EU) official has warned.

Speaking in Brussels, European Commission Vice-President Frans Timmermans said that in some EU member states,  “the majority of the Jewish community is not sure they have a future in Europe.”

Jewish fears of an uncertain future on the continent present “a huge challenge to the very foundations of European integration,” Timmermans said.

“We can talk till kingdom come about the euro, about internal markets, about whatever initiative we take,” Timmermans declared, “but if this fundamental value in European society, which is that there is a place for everyone whatever your creed is, whatever your background is, your race is, the choices you make in society – if that is challenged, we have to answer that challenge by a policy that offers hope and prospects for everyone in European society.”

In the past, Timmermans has spoken with a rare sensitivity about Israel, while making clear that he disagrees with the policies of the current Israeli government. In 2013, while still serving as the Foreign Minister of The Netherlands, Timmermans told an audience in Jerusalem that Europe judges Israel from a different standard to other Middle Eastern states because it is seen as “a European country.”

Last year, Timmermans made it clear that the Dutch government opposes the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement targeting Israel, saying at the same time that he “discouraged” Dutch companies from conducting business with Israeli communities in the West Bank.

In December 2013, Timmermans was accused by some Dutch politicians of advising the government-owned Vitens water company to abandon a project with Israeli water company Mekorot, while remaining involved with similar projects in Hamas-ruled Gaza. While Vitens decided in the end to stop working with Mekorot, Timmermans claimed afterwards that his office had no objections to the Israeli company.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/190432#.VMZI-jKvW4N
1/25/15
Report: France the Most Dangerous Country for Jews

Anti-Semitism Report for 2014, chronicling anti-Semitic incidents worldwide, will be presented during PM's Cabinet meeting Sunday.

The Anti-Semitism Report for 2014 will be presented Sunday during Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's weekly Cabinet meeting, Channel 2 News reported.

The Chairman of the World Zionist Organization, Avraham Duvdevani and WZO's Department for Countering Anti-Semitism, Yaakov Haguel, will present the report as well as a comprehensive questionnaire conducted among Diaspora Jews.

The report contains an overview of anti-Semitic incidents worldwide in 2014 as well as documents the main issues faced by Jewish communities in the Diaspora.

According to the report, 2014 saw a significant increase in anti-Semitic incidents, including violent attacks against Jews. Additionally, the report found, local governments are not doing enough to eradicate the incidents and violence.

July and August particularly saw a 400% increase in anti-Semitic incidents from 2013 - as a result of Operation Protective Edge.

"The war in Gaza was the trigger to express hatred for Israel and release the reins from anti-Semitism," said Roger Cukierman, the president of the Representative Council of Jewish Organizations in France and the Vice Chairman of the World Jewish Congress.

"Almost immediately, criticism of Israel or opposition to the war turned into sweeping calls against the Jews."

The report also notes that 2014 showed a marked increase in terrorism as well as violent attacks against Jewish targets, committed primarily by perpetrators affiliated with Islamic or radical movements.

Islamic anti-Semitism has become the leading form of anti-Semitism in the West. In fact, many of the reported anti-Semitic incidents were committed by Muslims, especially in countries with large Muslim populations.

Hate speech and anti-Semitism online and on social media has also become a worsening trend. Holocaust denial is extensive online and many websites are being used as a breeding ground for hate.

The report also notes that the world-wide campaign (through boycotts and other measures) to delegitimize and demonize Israel poses a major threat to Jewish communities around the world, including Israel's.

Another troubling finding is the alarming rise in cases of anti-Semitic violence across Europe.

France is currently ranked as the most dangerous country for Jews. Anti-Semitic incidents rose 100% in France with half of the incidents classified as "racist" being directed against Jews, even though Jews make up less than one percent of the population in the country.

Anti-Semitic violence is up in Great Britain and the Netherlands as well. In Germany, the number of anti-Semitic incidents doubled in 2014. In Belgium, 30% of citizens hold anti-Semitic views.

Anti-Semitism is also a huge problem in South America with more than 50% of respondents to the questionnaire stating that they or someone they know has experienced anti-Semitism.

Most incidents in South America are not violent, but a large percentage of Jews still fear walking around with Jewish symbols and have no faith in the government system to report incidents.

Haguel stated, "We have recently seen a significant increase in manifestations of anti-Semitism around the world."

"The government of Israel must advance the fight against anti-Semitism around the world and strengthen the Jews in the Diaspora."

"We cannot remain indifferent to the phenomenon of Jews being targeted simply because they are Jews. We cannot let the events of the past repeat themselves."

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4624744,00.html
Report: Jews continue to leave Europe
From 9.5 million in 1939, the number of European Jews has fallen to 1.4 million; and as anti-Semitism appears to be on the rise in the continent, some speak of a new 'exodus.'

Published:    02.09.15, 22:45

The last several decades have seen a precipitous drop in the number of Jews living in Europe, according to a poll published Monday by the Pew Research Center.

The report estimated that there were 3.2 million European Jews in 1960, which fell to 2 million by 1991, and to 1.4 million in recent years.

Emigration was particularly extensive in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. An estimated 3.4 million Jews lived in the European USSR in 1939. Following the catastrophic population decrease resulting from the Holocaust, the number was reduced to 2 million.
 
But emigration since 1945 has left 310,000 Jewish inhabitants. In Eastern European countries, the 4.7 million-strong Jewish community has dwindled to less than 100,000.

The report noted that while most of decline can be attributed to emigration to Israel, intermarriage and assimilation could also be factors.

Meanwhile, the decline appeared to be less severe in some Western European countries, whose Jewish population in 1939 was relatively smaller to begin with. About the same number of Jews live in France today as in 1939, while the number of Jews in the United Kingdom has dropped from 345,000 to 280,000.
 
However, the report noted recent reports of increased emigration from France, as well as new report showing a record level of anti-Semitism in the UK.
 
The report said 10 percent of the world's Jews live in Europe, down from 57 percent in 1939 and 35 percent in 1945.

Europe’s Jewish Population Continues to Plummet

If you ignore the cringe-worthy opening line of this article from the Pew Research Center – the Holocaust did far worse than “decimate” Europe’s Jewish population – you will find some interesting facts. In a nutshell, Europe’s Jewish population continues to decline. There are now approximately 1.4 million Jews living in Europe, compared to 9.5 million in 1939. Only 10 percent of the world’s Jews now live in Europe, and a mere 0.2 percent of Europeans are Jewish. 

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/europe-s-jewish-population-continues-plummet_846826.html#

http://news.yahoo.com/netanyahu-urges-jews-move-israel-copenhagen-attacks-111012753.html
Netanyahu urges Jews to move to Israel after Copenhagen attacks
2/15/15

Jerusalem (AFP) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday urged European Jews to move to Israel after a Jewish man was killed in an attack outside Copenhagen's main synagogue.

"Israel is your home. We are preparing and calling for the absorption of mass immigration from Europe," Netanyahu said in a statement, repeating a similar call after attacks by jihadists in Paris last month when four Jews were among the dead.

Two police officers were also wounded in Sunday's attack in Copenhagen, one of two fatal shootings in the normally peaceful Danish capital on the weekend.

In the first attack on Saturday, a 55-year-old man was killed at a panel discussion about Islam and free speech attended by a Swedish cartoonist behind controversial caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed.

"Extremist Islamic terrorism has struck Europe again... Jews have been murdered again on European soil only because they were Jews," Netanyahu said in the statement.

The Israeli prime minister said his government was to adopt a $45 million (39.5 million euro) plan "to encourage the absorption of immigrants from France, Belgium and Ukraine".

"To the Jews of Europe and to the Jews of the world I say that Israel is waiting for you with open arms," Netanyahu said.

He had made a similar call after three days of bloodshed in Paris that started with the January 7 attack on satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo where 12 people were gunned down, followed the next day by the shooting death of a policewoman just outside the city.

On January 9, the gunman who killed the policewoman took hostages at a kosher supermarket in Paris. He killed four Jewish hostages before police shot him dead when they raided the store.

The bodies of the four were later flown to Israel where they were buried.

Officials in Copenhagen described the weekend attacks as an act of terror and said the man believed to be behind the shootings was shot dead after opening fire on police at a rail station.

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman sent condolences to Danish counterpart Martin Lidegaard over the attacks, telling him Israel "appreciates Denmark's cooperation in maintaining the security of Israelis and Jews in Denmark."

The foreign ministry quoted Lieberman as telling Lidegaard that Israel was "ready for any cooperation required on this issue".

The Palestinians also condemned the attack "in the strongest terms," with PLO official Saeb Erakat calling the Copenhagen attacks "absolutely unjustifiable."

"Terrorism knows no religion or nationality, and our opposition to such violence must be firmly united. We stand in solidarity with the Danish people," Erakat said in a statement.

Europe scrambles to reassure Jews after Copenhagen attacks

 European nations scrambled on Monday to reassure their Jewish communities after deadly attacks in Copenhagen that heightened fears of a new surge in anti-Semitic violence.

rest: http://news.yahoo.com/danish-pm-moves-reassure-jews-attacks-160750120.html;_ylt=AwrBJSACJOJUPFIAfG3QtDMD

http://news.yahoo.com/jewish-cemetery-vandalized-eastern-france-amid-tensions-192447030.html
Jewish cemetery vandalized in eastern France amid tensions
2/15/15

PARIS (AP) — Hundreds of graves have been vandalized at a Jewish cemetery in eastern France, in what the president called an "odious and barbaric" anti-Semitic act against French values.

The vandalism comes at a time of growing insecurity among French Jews and amid general religious tensions in Europe, after Islamic radicals attacked a kosher market and a satirical newspaper in Paris last month and similar attacks hit Denmark this weekend.

French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said in a statement Sunday that a criminal investigation team is at the damaged cemetery in Sarre-Union, near the German border, and authorities will do "everything" to pursue the vandals.

Jewish and Muslim gravesites and places of worship in France see sporadic but frequent vandalism. The incident this weekend was of an unusually large scale, and hit a cemetery that has been vandalized in the past. Local media reported that about 200 grave stones were knocked down, and a monument to Holocaust victims was damaged.

French President Francois Hollande said in a statement that "France is determined to fight relentlessly against anti-Semitism and those who want to attack the nation's values."

Hollande visited the Danish Embassy in Paris on Sunday, and a crowd waving candles gathered to show solidarity with the victims of the Copenhagen attacks.

"We need stand together in Europe and in all the world wherever jihadis try to threaten democracy," said Sacha Reingewirtz, president of the Union of Jewish Students of France.

Many French Jews feel increasingly worried about anti-Semitism, particularly coming from young Muslims who embrace radical ideology propagated online.

France has Europe's largest Jewish population, about half a million. More than 7,000 emigrated to Israel last year.

France's leading Muslim groups denounced the attacks in Paris and Copenhagen, and are frustrated that Islam is often associated with terrorism.

Five French teens held for vandalising Jewish graves
French prosecutors said Monday they had taken five teenagers into custody suspected of vandalising hundreds of Jewish graves, an act that prompted fresh pleas for Jews not to turn their back on France.   
http://news.yahoo.com/five-french-teens-held-vandalising-jewish-graves-143742759.html


Jewish Cemetery in Germany desecrated, mirroring French vandalism
A Jewish cemetery in the northern German city of Oldenburg was desecrated over the weekend, the Oldenburger Online newspaper reported on Monday. Police are investigating the incident which left swastikas splattered on the cemetery's entrance, a wall as well as on two parked cars. 
http://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/Jewish-Cemetery-in-Germany-desecrated-mirroring-French-vandalism-391278


Lithuanian fascists march beneath swastikas near execution site of 10,000 Jews
Approximately 500 ultra nationalists, some bearing Nazi swastikas, marched through a Lithuanian city that during the Holocaust saw the region’s most effective massacre of Jews.
http://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/Lithuanian-fascists-march-beneath-swastikas-near-execution-site-of-10000-Jews-391289


Rising in Amerika too 

Thirty Madison, Wisconsin Homes Spraypainted With Anti-Semitic Slurs
At least 30 homes in Madison, Wisconsin, were vandalized overnight Friday, some with anti-Semitic slurs and swastikas. Other residents awoke to derogatory words geared toward women and other minorities sprayed on their homes, cars, garage doors, mailboxes and driveways, according to the Coordination Forum for Countering Anti-Semitism.   
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2015/02/thirty-madison-wisconsin-homes-spraypainted-with-anti-semitic-slurs/

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4628476,00.html
Italy to vote on recognition of Palestinian statehood
Italian Democratic Party says it would back motion, as Israeli embassy in Rome says 'any premature recognition would only encourage Palestinians not to resume talks'.
Ynetnews
Published:    02.19.15, 09:08 / Israel News

The Italian parliament is expected to cast a vote on the recognition of a Palestinian state as soon as Thursday, following similar moves by other European Union countries, the Italian news agency ANSAmed reported.
 
While most developing countries recognize Palestine as a state, most Western European countries do not, supporting the Israeli and US position that an independent Palestinian state should emerge from negotiations with Israel.
 
The Italian Democratic Party (PD) said it would back the motion, as did MPs from the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S), while Italy's far-right Northern League and center-right Forza Italia party announced it would vote against it.
 
The ANSAmed report cited a statement issued by the Israeli embassy in Rome in which it spoke out against the proposed resolution, saying: "It is clear that any premature recognition would only encourage Palestinians not to resume talks with Israel and it would make the possibility of peace less likely''.
 
The parliaments of several European countries, including Britain, France and Spain, have in recent months passed non-binding votes recognizing Palestine, angering Israel.
 
Israel is committed to the establishment of a Palestinian state under a peace agreement, but says such resolutions encourage the Palestinians to avoid negotiations. On October 30, Sweden's government became the first western European nation in the EU to recognize Palestinian statehood. Since then, lawmakers in Britain, Spain and Ireland have approved non-binding motions urging recognition.
 
Recently, members of the European Parliament began debating whether they can agree on a common approach for the European Union's 28 member states.

God gave the Jews the Temple Mount, not Copenhagen's cafés"
The resurgence of European anti-Semitism is leading to a changed continent.

The kippah is prohibited all over Europe. It is the symbol of a continent that is inexorably emptying itself of its Jews. Wearing a Jewish yarmulke is a revolutionary revolt in Berlin, Paris, Rome, Malmö and Brussels.

Europe has lost half of its Jewish population, not since the Holocaust, but since 1960 to the present. Just stand in front of the the famous Portuguese synagogue of Amsterdam, built in 1675, in a period in which the Netherlands welcomed the Jews from all over the world, and you will understand what it means being a Jew in Europe. The police will tell you it is "not safe".

Even England, which has so far stood in Europe as a country with a lower degree of anti-Semitism, is shaken by a report of the Government about a boom of anti-Jewish intolerance in the British society. The climate is characterized by the Baroness Jenny Tonge, a House of Commons’ member who has just asked the Jews to distance themselves from Israel. And Sky News in recent days aired a video on the reconstruction of Gaza with the words “Auschwitz Remembered” as background.

In a Jewish school in London, students are training for a possible terrorist attack, a synagogue has canceled a trip to Disneyland in France, while the police have intensified patrols in Jewish areas.

In Austria last week a judge, Philip Christl, decided that shouting “Death to the Jews” is a form of “protest against Israel”. And in England 700 artists just announced a cultural boycott of Israel, including musicians such as Richard Ashcroft of The Verve, Brian Eno and Roger Waters, filmakers like Mike Leigh, writers such as John Bergerand, playwrights like Caryl Churchill.

For this British élite, the Chinese invasion of Tibet was an energetic measure to bring socialism to a feudal land; dissenting to the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia was a mistake deserving execution; the Palestinian Arab terrorists (and Germans, Venezuelan, Japanese who help them) are patriots acting out of despair; the massacres in Cambodia are a revolutionary event; the heavy hand of the British military against the Irish terrorists was an insult to humanity; the hijackers of planes differ from their passengers; the Russian tanks in Budapest saved, by drastic means, the glory of socialism; and the Israeli raid in Entebbe broke international law.

In Germany, a survey of the Bertelsmann Foundation has just revealed that 35 percent of German citizens consider Israel as “a new Nazism”. Professor MonikaSchwarz-Friesel at the Technical University of Berlin has analyzed ten years of hate mail sent to the Central Council of Jewsin Germany and the Israeli Embassy in Berlin. To her surprise, only the three percent came from right-wing extremists, while over sixty percent came from educated members of the leftist, anti-fascist and humanitarian mainstream. These mails contained statements such as “the murder of innocent children suits your tradition”.

Everywhere in Europe, from Milan to Marseille, anti-Semitism is returning to the intensity of the ‘30s of the twentieth century. How did we reach this level of madness and irrationality? This is a mystery. Nobody knows why an entire continent suddenly began to gas and incinerate 6 million Jews either.

But I know that despite this, I would like to continue to see my Jewish friends here in this lost Europe along with me, I also know they would be safer in Eretz Yisrael. That is the land God gave them, not the European shtetl. The Temple Mount in Jerusalem, not the cafés in Copenaghen.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/16508#.VOh0Ji5rWk4

http://news.yahoo.com/car-hits-injures-officer-french-presidential-palace-082222619.html
Hollande: French Muslims have both rights, responsibilities
2/23/15

PARIS (AP) — President Francois Hollande says France's millions of Muslims should be protected and respected and in turn they should also respect the nation's strict secular policies.

Hollande spoke Thursday after three radical Muslim gunmen killed 17 people last week in France's worst attacks in decades. Two of the attackers claimed allegiances to al-Qaida in Yemen and another to the Islamic State group.

The terror attacks have prompted scattered retaliatory attacks on Muslim sites around France and have put many French Muslims on the defensive.

Hollande said that "anti-Muslim acts, like anti-Semitism, should not just be denounced but severely punished."

http://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/Economic-catastrophe-awaits-if-Jews-leave-Europe-Jewish-leader-warns-393456
Economic catastrophe awaits if Jews leave Europe, Jewish leader warns

President of the European Jewish Congress Moshe Kantor calls for more counter-anti-Semitism laws to combat Jewish flight, warning of further economic hardship.
3/10/15

Europe is on the verge of a serious economic crisis if the European Union does not introduce new legislation to counter anti-Semitism, according to the president of the European Jewish Congress.

Moshe Kantor said every Jewish family on the continent is contemplating whether they should "leave or stay" as they fear the levels of anti-Semitism growing.

"This minority is going in case authorities are not delivering some real, real stuff," the Russian told Reuters at London's Kensington Palace. "This minority is going to leave Europe, definitely because this question just now in every Jewish family in Europe: to leave or to stay. There's no other solution. And the only one thing which can stop at the moment this process is real gestures of the authorities on a European level and on a British level."

Last month, the body which advises Britain's estimated 260,000 Jews on security reported that the number of anti-Semitic incidents in Britain had risen to a record level last year.

Many of those incidents were sparked by the 50-day conflict in Gaza that ended in August. Israel launched its Gaza offensive with the declared aim of halting rocket attacks by Hamas. More than 2,100 Palestinians, most of them civilians, were killed, along with 73 mostly Israeli soldiers.

Across Europe, Jews have warned of a growing under-current of anti-Semitism, fueled by anger at Israeli policy in the Middle East and social tensions over immigration and increasing economic hardship under austerity policies that have helped far-right movements gain popularity.

Those fears have been exacerbated after an Islamist militant gunman killed four people in a Jewish supermarket in Paris last month as well as other attacks in Copenhagen and Brussels.

Kantor said European lawmakers needed to take action to ensure Jewish communities have the necessary protection from the continuous terrorist threat they face.

Kantor, who's also the president of the European Council on Tolerance and Reconciliation, warned if the authorities took no action then the potential Jewish exodus from Europe could create an economic crisis.

"If at the moment authorities are not going to deliver some real gestures, I think it will be the trigger for a very, very important economical crisis in Europe and in any country, any big country," he said.

"I think out of three million Jews that are living in Europe at least one million, very active part or young part, self-sufficient part are going to leave and it will be a disaster, an economical disaster for Europe in general because first of all some supporters, non-Jewish supporters will come with Jews. It's a lot of cash and money currents are going to leave Europe and also businesses," Kantor explained.

"We should react on the level of gestures and intentions, visible intentions, not to wait until it's on the level of murdering people; this is the key point just now. We are in front of a strong demand from civil society to modify the legislation fighting against racism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism," he added.

Kantor was speaking at an event where the European Council on Tolerance and Reconciliation awarded Cameroonian soccer player Samuel Eto'o with the European Medal of Tolerance for his stance against inequality.

Watch: Mob launches anti-Semitic attack on Stamford Hill synagogue
Six arrested after group of more than 20 men and women launch attack on north London synagogue as they shout 'kill the Jews'

 A drunken mob of more than 20 thugs shouted "kill the Jews" as they stormed into a north London synagogue while young worshippers celebrated the end of the sabbath.

The anti-Semitic abuse was hurled by the group of men and women as they first beat up a young man outside before chasing him inside, breaking windows and attacking others.

Part of the chaotic incident in Stamford Hill was captured on video before the intruders were beaten back as the worshippers grabbed chairs to protect themselves.

Scotland Yard said six people - four men and two women - were later arrested on suspicion of public order offences and assault.

 Synagogue elders, including Rabbi Maurice Davis, are convinced the attack was not religiously motivated and was merely a typical example of anti-social behaviour.

Young people were gathered together inside the Ahavas Torah synagogue when more than 20 partygoers tried to force their way into the building around 1.15am on Sunday.

They had attacked a Jewish youth outside and, when he took refuge inside the synagogue, they chased after him and attacked some of the boys inside.

 Scotland Yard are treating the incident as an anti-Semitic attack, while some of the victims and their friends are fearful of further violence.

Meir Taub, who is a member of the local Shomrim, a Jewish patrol designed to crack down on violence against Jews, said he was called to the incident shortly after it began and was the first to call the police.

He said: "I came down and there was a huge group of people, men and women, trying to force their way into the synagogue.

"The window had already been smashed. Teenagers were shouting abuse. It was blatantly anti-Semitic, they came and attacked a synagogue."

 Mr Taub added: "I was on the phone to the police all the time, I didn't interfere but others did. The number of these incidents has increased in the past few months, since before Charlie Hebdo. We're stepping up patrols and working with the police. The courts should take attacks like this seriously.

"I have clear footage which I'm going to show to the police, which clearly shows there were anti-Semitic chants."

 A Scotland Yard spokesman said: "The disturbance began when a group of drunk males, believed to have walked to the area from a house party nearby, tried to gain access to the synagogue.

"One man was injured as he sought to prevent the group from entering the building. He sustained facial injuries, not believed to be serious, and was taken to hospital for treatment.

"A small number of the group did briefly gain entry to the synagogue before being removed by security staff."

He added: "The incident is being treated as an anti-Semitic incident, due to remarks made by one of the group. However there is nothing to suggest that it was a planned or targeted attack.

"Six males were arrested for public order offences and assault. All were taken to a north London police station where they remain in custody."

 Inspector Jonathan Waterfield said: "We are investigating to establish the full circumstances of the incident and to identify anyone else involved in the disturbance who has not yet been arrested.

"We have also increased police patrols in the Stamford Hill area to provide reassurance to the community."

vid+pics: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/11488480/Watch-Mob-launches-anti-Semitic-attack-on-Stamford-Hill-synagogue.html

Anti-Israel protesters call ‘Kill the Jews’ in Vienna
Bosnian soccer fans join pro-Palestinian rally at city center and begin chanting anti-Semitic slogans

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=_juwsPbrXD0

Bosnian soccer fans joined a pro-Palestinian demonstration in Vienna on Friday and shouted anti-Semitic epithets in one of the city’s central plazas, Austrian newspaper Der Standard reported.

A video posted to YouTube shows several dozen pro-Palestinian demonstrators waving Palestinian flags in Stephansplatz and calling “free, free Palestine!”

The Bosnian fans dressed in blue, yellow and white are seen standing among the protesters and joining them in their cries, before setting out on a chant of their own: “Ubij, ubij Židove!” or “Kill, kill the Jews!”

Bosnians were in the city to watch a match between Austria and Bosnia-Herzegovina later in the day.

Austrian police said they were investigating the incident.

A wave of anti-Israeli and often anti-Semitic rallies hit European capitals in the summer of 2014 during the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The frequent protests, ostensibly calling for an end to Israel’s actions against Palestinians, often devolved into racist demonstrations in which the mob called out anti-Semitic slogans.

Read more: Anti-Israel protesters call 'Kill the Jews' in Vienna | The Times of Israel http://www.timesofisrael.com/anti-israel-protesters-call-kill-the-jews-in-vienna/#ixzz3WMXbvM4g

Nazi chants at Dutch soccer game expose an ugly blot on ‘the beautiful game’

It was a beautiful day for soccer in the Dutch town of Utrecht. Spring sunshine filled the stadium as the local team, FC Utrecht, kicked off against perennial powerhouse Ajax Amsterdam.

As the beautiful game slowly played out on the field, however, things in the stands quickly got ugly.

“Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas,” sang a section of the home supporters towards the fans visiting from Amsterdam, a city historic in part for its Jewish community. “My father was in the commandos, my mother was in the SS, together they burned Jews, because Jews burn the best!”

The anti-Semitism was caught on video and quickly circulated among Dutch media. FC Utrecht issued an apology as Jewish organizations demanded action by soccer authorities.

The shocking chants weren’t an isolated incident, however. Instead, they were the latest in a string of anti-Semitic episodes that threaten to mar European soccer.

Discrimination isn’t new to European football, or soccer. The sport has long struggled with racism, a problem which resurfaced recently when Chelsea fans pushed a black man off the Paris metro, chanting: “We’re racist, we’re racist, and that’s the way we like it.”

“We’ve had issues like this since the ’80s,” said Shimon Samuels, director for international relations at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a human-rights organization.

But anti-Semitism in European soccer appears to be getting worse. According to Kick It Out, a British organization originally devoted to combating racism, anti-Semitic incidents are up in the English Premier League. A Kick It Out study released last month revealed that there were 59 reported instances of anti-Semitism during the first half of this season. That was more than during the entire previous season. Anti-Semitism made up a third of the total instances of abuse, and was second in frequency only to racism.

One of this season’s worst episodes came when fans of the London club West Ham were caught on camera chanting “I’ve got a foreskin, how about you? F—— Jew” on their way to play Tottenham Hotspur, a team with a historically strong Jewish following. (Last year, several Tottenham supporters were arrested for chants referring to themselves as “Yids,” a derogatory name that some Hotspur fans have reclaimed.)

Other recent incidents have included fans — and in several instances players — making Nazi-like salutes.

For the past decade, European soccer organizations have fought a public battle against racism. But now anti-Semitism appears to have emerged as a second front.

Samuels said anti-Semitism in soccer is different today than it was decades ago.

“I think there is a shift going on,” he said. “The troublemakers way back to the 1980s … were neo-Nazis. Today it’s a combination. It’s a new alliance between neo-Nazis and jihadists. In the first instance it’s the old anti-Semitism but also there is an understanding that as you attack the Jew as the quintessential symbol of Europe, you also attack the West and you attack the delicate fabric of liberal democracy.”

To support his claim, Samuels pointed to a recent game between Bosnia and Austria. Bosnian fans took to the streets of Vienna in what was originally a pro-Palestine demonstration, but eventually disintegrated into chants of “Kill, kill the Jews” — also caught on video.

Samuels said anti-Semitism in soccer is part and parcel of a bigger problem in Europe. “It’s a sort of chicken and egg relationship,” he said. “Football is vulnerable, because it’s very difficult to control fans.”

But Ronny Naftaniel, Chairman of the Dutch Jewish Humanitarian Fund, sought to draw a line between the chants — as insulting as they are — and anti-Semitism. Whether it’s West Ham vs. Tottenham or Utrecht vs. Ajax Amsterdam, he said such insults have more to do with local rivalries than true bigotry. (The Bosnia case was an exception, he said.)

“It’s indeed very shocking what happened at the game between FC Utrecht and Ajax,” he said. “It’s something that happens twice or three times a year during games. And it looks as if no one is able to fight it. Of course, it has some deeper roots which go back to the fact that Ajax supporters, they expose themselves as Jews. They walk with flags with the Star of David and they call themselves ‘The Jews.’ So the problem is that then their adversaries act as if Ajax are the Jews and come up with the most insulting slogans.”

“For us Jews, we are disgusted,” he said. “But those people who do those slogans are not Nazis. They are not most of them fundamentalists whatsoever. They are supporters, hard core supporters, of those clubs. But we don’t want to hear it. For us, these are insults. For us, it is horrible after what happened in the second World War and in the gas chambers.”

Even if those behind the FC Utrecht fans aren’t really neo-Nazis, that doesn’t mean the problem isn’t a vexing one.

“If these were hard core anti-Semites, it would be easier to combat it,” he said. “But it’s part of the football culture, and that is very tough to fight against.”

Progress is slow and difficult, but not impossible, he said. Such anti-Semitic chants were once entrenched in The Hague, the symbolic heart of European justice. Supporters of the local team, ADO Den Haag, used to chant “Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas” whenever Ajax came to town, Naftaniel said. They even made a sickening sound, as if gas were slowly leaking into the stadium.

But ADO cracked down on the chants, enforcing lifetime bans for offenders and installing audio and video technology to catch perpetrators, Naftaniel said. “The leadership of the club really started to fight it,” he said. “That indeed helped.”

Both Naftaniel and Samuels said there is an even easier and perhaps more effective way of combating anti-Semitic chants.

“Walk off the field,” Naftaniel said, referring to the Ajax players and coaching staff. “Then a kind of national debate would start. If Ajax said, ‘we won’t play if they tell us to go to the gas chamber,’ then that would have helped.”

Stopping games forces everyone in attendance to take the chants seriously, Samuels said.

“When the referee calls a halt and they walk of the field, this makes the perpetrator, the spoiler, into a villain for those people who honestly came for their love of the beautiful game of football and paid good money for it and came from distances,” he said. “So they say, ‘Why they hell should we have to be bothered by these nuts or hate mongers?’

“You have to turn the thing around and have the public understand that this is in their best interests,” Samuels said. “If they really want to watch football, then football cannot be politicized.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/04/10/nazi-chants-at-dutch-soccer-game-expose-an-ugly-blot-on-the-beautiful-game/?tid=hp_mm

40 Person Mob Assaults 2 Jews on Paris’ Boulevard Voltaire

Two Jewish residents of Paris were assaulted on the street by a gang of about 40 people on Friday, Israeli French JSS News reported on Friday.

The attack against the two Jewish residents, both in their 20s, occurred about 2:30 p.m. on Boulevard Voltaire in Paris’ 11 arrondissement, according to the report.

Police launched an investigation into the incident and warned local Jewish businesses owners to be extra vigilant, JSS News said.

Witnesses on the scene said members of the Jewish community volunteered to watch over the many local Jewish businesses on Boulevard Voltaire, according to French antisemitism watchdog group the Bureau National de Vigilance Contre l’Antisemitisme.

The gang of attackers were associated with anti-Israel groups Gaza Firm and the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign, said security personnel responsible for protecting the Jewish community.

The attack marks the latest in a growing antisemitic trend in France and Europe as a whole. Earlier this year, Islamist gunmen seized a Kosher supermarket in Paris and killed four Jewish hostages. Just a few weeks later, a security guard was killed in Copenhagen when a lone gunman opened fire in front of the city’s Great Synagogue.

In 2006, a French Jew was kidnapped from his cell phone store from the same Boulevard Voltaire, tortured and ultimately killed.

http://www.algemeiner.com/2015/05/01/40-person-mob-assaults-2-jews-on-paris-boulevard-voltaire/

Germany, Czech Republic see rise in anti-Semitism

German interior minister says anti-Semitic offenses rose 25.2% last year; Prague's Jewish community registers significant increase of cases of harassment and threats against Jews.

Germany's top security official says new statistics show a sharp rise in anti-Semitic offenses last year, as well as in crimes against foreigners.

Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere told reporters Wednesday that anti-Semitic offenses rose 25.2% last year to 1,596 after declining in 2013. Crimes against foreigners were up 21.5% to 3,945.

De Maiziere says the rise is partially due to new reporting methods that more closely track the motivation of perpetrators, but said nonetheless "this development is worrying and must be stopped."

He says there is no political solution alone, but the "whole of society is needed."

Overall, police registered more than 6 million crimes in 2014, up slightly from 2013.

Earlier last week, a new report by Prague's Jewish community registered a significant increase of cases of harassment and threats against Jews last year.

The annual report on anti-Semitism released Monday said such attacks – including anti-Semitic letters and emails, verbal attacks and harassment in front of Jewish objects – jumped to 37 in 2014 from nine in 2013.

The report said attacks against Jews on the Internet rose to 191 cases compared to 156 the previous year.

The report added that anti-Semitism in the Czech Republic remains at a relatively low level with one physical attack registered last year and five attacks on Jewish property. The biggest threat is posed by potential terrorist attacks by radicalized individuals.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4655075,00.html

http://www.algemeiner.com/2015/05/29/report-france-scaling-back-security-of-jewish-communities-though-attacks-on-the-rise/
5/29/15
Report: France Scaling Back Security of Jewish Communities Though Attacks on the Rise

Although at least three antisemitic acts are committed daily against Jews in France, it appears French security has been scaling back efforts to protect the country’s anxious Jewish communities, the British Jewish Chronicle reported on Thursday.

Just five months after a deadly terrorist attack at a kosher supermarket in Paris, “the truth is that this [French] military protection is, unofficially, waning,” reported the JC.

The report stemmed from concerns among synagogues and community centers, especially outside urban centers, that soldiers have begun providing only preliminary security at events, leaving the premises shortly after ceremonies or other engagements begin.

“Some small shuls have been told that they will not be guarded for an event that has fewer than ten participants,” said the JC, which is potentially devastating for Orthodox or other smaller communities in which barely a quorum is summoned for daily prayers.

The report came amid an announcement by the French antisemitism watchdog the Bureau National de Vigilance Contre l’Antisemitisme that on average three antisemitic acts are committed against Jews in France every day.

The head of France’s department to combat racism and antisemitism, Gilles Clavreul, confirmed those figures, according to the JC.

And since the January siege at the kosher supermarket, in which an armed gunmen who swore allegiance to the Islamic State slaughtered four Jewish hostages, 22 complaints of violent incidents have been filed.

One of those involved the brutal beating of a French teenager by four assailants in north-east Paris. The boy reportedly lost 30 percent of his vision as a result of the attack.

In addition, since the HyperCacher attack, the watchdog said it has registered 72 online incidents and 60 accounts of verbal abuse and threats.

Adding to an air of despondency, French Jews are reporting incidents of hateful crimes against their community “less and less,” said the bureau.

“If the perpetrators get arrested they are released again and just continue with the attacks,” said BNVCA director Danielle Ferra. “If they go to prison, they become Islamist extremists. We don’t know what to do.”

The rising attacks have spurred increased migration to Israel said a spokesperson from SOS Racisme, who indicated the number is likely to rise to 10,000 in 2015 from 6,500 last year.

Shortly after the supermarket attack in January, which occurred in conjunction with the slaughter at the French satire magazine Charlie Hebdo, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told French Jews “Israel is your home.”

Last month, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls pledged $107 million to fight racism and antisemitism, saying ““Racism, anti-Semitism, hatred of Muslims, of foreigners and homophobia are growing in an insufferable manner in our country.”

http://www.algemeiner.com/2015/06/08/sarkozy-there-are-schools-in-france-where-you-cannot-teach-the-holocaust/
6/8/15
Sarkozy: There Are Schools in France Where You Cannot Teach the Holocaust

Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy told an audience in Israel on Monday that there exist schools in France where teachers cannot teach about the Holocaust.

“It’s true there are schools [in France] where you cannot teach the Holocaust,” Sarkozy said during an open discussion at the 15th Annual Herzliya Conference, according to a journalist from French BFM TV.

French law prohibits Holocaust denial in the classroom.

The former French president, who left office in 2012 after losing to current President Francois Hollande, apparently insisted three times during his 45 minutes of discussion that France is not an antisemitic country.

Recent reports have indicated that as many as three antisemitic attacks are committed against Jews in the country every day. The number of French Jews undergoing the immigration process to Israel doubled in 2014 compared to the year before.

And earlier this year, a lone gunman killed four hostages at a kosher supermarket in Paris, prompting the government to pledge $107 million to combat antisemitism.

The current chairman of France’s center-right The Republicans party, Sarkozy arrived in Israel on Sunday for meetings with Israeli officials and for the speaking engagement at Herzliya’s Interdisciplinary Center on Monday, for which he said he was not paid, according to French Blasting News.

He was also scheduled to meet with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

Coming on the heels of an Israel boycott controversy sparked by the CEO of French multinational mobile giant Orange, Sarkozy roundly rejected a French boycott of Israeli companies, calling such efforts “unacceptable.”

He said it was up to CEO Stephane Richard’s to visit Israel in order to explain himself.

“I know that Stephane Richard will come here to explain himself,” said Sarkozy, who many believe is gearing up for another run at the French presidency in 2017.

Palestine - European Union Risks “Jew-hater” Label

The European Union (EU) runs the risk of being labelled “Jew-hater” - should it proceed with its plans requiring supermarkets and other retailers to label products made by Jews in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) differently from those made by Jews in Israel.

No matter what spin the EU uses to justify any such discriminatory labelling—the EU will be seen to be actively supporting the 2005 Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel—whose manifesto states:

    “We, representatives of Palestinian civil society, call upon international civil society organizations and people of conscience all over the world to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel ... We appeal to you to pressure your respective states to impose embargoes and sanctions against Israel ...”

    “These non-violent punitive measures should be maintained until Israel meets its obligation to recognize the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination and fully complies with the precepts of international law by:

        Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall
        Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and
        Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194.”

The BDS campaign regards the ending of all trade and economic relations with Jews living in Judea and Samaria as just the “first step” in its campaign of racial vilification, denigration and delegitimisation designed to ultimately dismantle the Jewish State.

The EU appears to be readying itself to help the BDS campaign achieve this “first step”—as the foreign ministers of 16 of the EU’s 28 member states have urged EU Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini to introduce the labelling regulations—stating in a letter dated 16 April that they:

    “remain of the view that this is an important step in the full implementation of EU longstanding policy, in relation to the preservation of the two-state solution. The continued expansion of Israeli illegal settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and other territories occupied by Israel since 1967 threatens the prospect of a just and final peace agreement.”

These foreign ministers conveniently ignore that:

    The two-state solution—as contemplated by the Oslo Accords and the Bush Roadmap—is dead and buried after fruitless negotiations and rejected Israeli offers made during the past 20 years have all come to nought. Any hope of peacefully resolving the competing territorial claims of both Jews and Arabs to Judea and Samaria under these negotiating parameters is a figment of the EU’s imagination.

    The Palestinian Authority—Israel’s negotiating partner under Oslo and the Roadmap - no longer exists—having been disbanded by decree of Mahmoud Abbas on 3 January 2013.
    Earlier two-state solutions were rejected by the Arabs:

        when that result could have been achieved with the stroke of an Arab League pen at any time between 1948-1967 or
        when previously proposed by:

            (a) Britain in 1923
            (b )the Peel Commission in 1937
            (c) the United Nations in 1947

    Jews are residing legally in Judea and Samaria pursuant to the rights vested in the Jewish people under article 6 of the Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the United Nations Charter.

The EU labelling diktat—if it proceeds—will have very little economic effect.

Such EU action will however align the EU squarely with those BDS racists and Jew-haters who continue to drool at the prospect of Israel being replaced by another Arab and Islamic State.

The EU will indeed merit the “Jew-hater” tag - should its ill-considered and misconceived labelling action proceed.

http://canadafreepress.com/article/73172

http://www.algemeiner.com/2015/06/26/after-terror-attack-in-france-israeli-minister-calls-on-french-jews-to-come-home/
6/26/15
After Terror Attack in France, Israeli Minister Calls on French Jews to ‘Come Home’

Israel made an impassioned call to French Jews to immigrate to Israel, after the latest terrorist attack in France at a factory in Lyon on Friday.

“To all the Jews of France I say: Come home!” Israeli Immigrant Absorption Minister Ze’ev Elkin said, amid news that a radical Islamic terrorist attacked a U.S. chemical firm in France, killing one.

“Antisemitism is growing, terrorism is rising and according to reports ISIS is committing murder in broad daylight,” said Elkin.

He said Israel was prepared to absorb French Jewish immigrants “with open arms,” adding that Israel was expecting a wave of immigration.

“The absorption staff at Ben Gurion International Airport are expected to work overtime this summer,” he said, calling immigration absorption a “primary concern for the Israeli government.”

According to Tablet magazine, French Jewish immigration to Israel was up 25 percent in 2015, compared to the same period in 2014.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had called on French Jews to immigrate to Israel after terrorists attacked a kosher supermarket in Paris this year, killing four hostages. Israel’s Law of Return allows Jews worldwide to obtain Israeli citizenship.

French President Francois Hollande rebuffed the Israeli call however, insisting France was safe for its Jewish population, which numbers close to half a million souls.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxQyW9gLi7A

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4675519,00.html
Summer of French aliyah begins
Some 400 French Jews arrive at Ben-Gurion Airport this week; more than 3,000 expected to arrive throughout the summer. Additionally, 80 French Jews on tourist visas become Israeli citizens.
7/3/15

Some 130 French Jews, including 46 children and two babies, landed at Ben-Gurion International Airport on Monday, marking the start of a wave of French aliyah expected over the course of the summer. Some 400 French immigrants were expected to arrive by the end of the week.
 
Additionally, some 80 French Jews who had been in Israel on tourist visas became Israeli citizens and received their Israeli identity cards in a ceremony hosted by the Jewish Agency for Israel at the organization's Jerusalem headquarters building on Tuesday.

According to data compiled by the Jewish Agency and the Ministry of Aliyah and Immigrant Absorption, more than 3,000 French Jews will immigrate to Israel this summer, including many young families whose children will enter Israeli schools at the start of the new school year.
 
The current wave of French aliyah comes in the midst of a joint effort by the Ministry and The Jewish Agency to maintain the high rate of immigration from France and increase aliyah from around the world. Aliyah from France has risen steeply in recent years and France has become the number one source of immigration to Israel for the first time.

In light of the heinous terror attack in France this past weekend and as the wave of anti-Semitism continues, Minister of Aliyah and Immigrant Absorption Ze'ev Elkin called on French Jews to immigrate to Israel.
 
"We welcome the immigrants who arrived in Israel last night. Every plane that arrives in Israel strengthens Israel and strengthens the French Jews who have come home," said Elkin. "As anti-Semitism increases, terrorism surges, and sick ISIS operatives carry out murders in broad daylight, Jews around the world know that they have a country and a family to return to.
 
"We welcome you with open arms. According to all forecasts, this is just the beginning of an unprecedented wave of Aliyah from France, and I am very pleased that the Ministry of Aliyah and Immigrant Absorption offices at Ben-Gurion Airport will be working overtime this summer."
 
Jewish Agency data show that French Jews' interest in immigrating to Israel remains strong and is reflected in increasing numbers of French Jews participating in aliyah information sessions across France, contacting Jewish Agency offices for information, and beginning the formal Aliyah process.
 
"Over the past two years, The Jewish Agency for Israel has increased its activities in Europe in response to European Jews' growing interest in aliyah," said Jewish Agency Chairman Natan Sharansky, who attended Tuesday's ceremony and presented new French Jewish immigrants with their Israeli identity cards.
 
"We are seeing an unprecedented wave of aliyah from European countries, which indicates not only how Europe is becoming an uncomfortable place for Jews, but –even more importantly – the extent to which Israel is becoming a magnet for Jews interested in a meaningful Jewish life, in freedom, personal security, and a sense of belonging to a country that is integral to the future of the Jewish people."

EU: Landslide vote for West Bank product labeling

Non-binding call to create an all encompassing policy for labeling settlement products drew criticism from Israel: We remember the last time Europeans marked Jewish goods.

The European parliament approved a decision calling for the labeling of settlement products on Thursday, with a vote of 525 for and 70 against. Only a small number of European states currently require the labeling of settlement products; however there is now a growing fear that the labeling will become a union-wide policy.

"The policy stinks of boycott," a foreign ministry spokesman said. One of the vote's articles includes a statement made by 16 European foreign ministers who backed the move in April.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in response, "We remember what happened when Europeans marked Jewish goods. The EU decision is a distortion of justice and logic."

"The state of Israel views the vote with severity, especially the call for labeling products," the Foreign Ministry responded.

"The labeling of products is an act of discrimination which reeks of a boycott. We are talking about an attempt to force a political solution under the guise of a technical move," the statement continued.

"Europe is acting especially duplicitous in Israel's case, we have yet to see the same policies enacted against North Cyprus or Western Sahara," the ministry concluded.

Deputy Foreign Minister, MK Tzipi Hotovely said in response to the European parliamentary decision, "We must call the child by it's name – labeling products is a boycott. Israel will not allow any body to discriminate between products which are produced by Israeli citizens within Israel's territory."

"The attempts to force a one sided political solution, especially when the topic is product labeling, will lead to nowhere. Immediately following Rosh Hashana I plan to hold an urgent debate with the Europe section of the Ministry on the matter, and initiate a diplomatic campaign against the labeling initiative," she concluded.

The European Union's Foreign Minister Federica Mogherini stated on Saturday that work on the union's settlement labeling policy is nearing completion. As of now only a handful of states in the union instruct retail chains to label settlement products, including; Britain, Denmark, Belgium. As a result of the vote, the union is set to adopt a European settlement labeling policy.

Luxemburg's Foreign Minister, Jean Asselborn said that the policy's publication is expected to occur by the end of the year. The matter has been on the European Union's agenda for a number of years, but was never adopted as a binding decision.

16 out of the 28 EU foreign Ministers called on the Mogherini to expedite the policy last April. Israel's friends in the union- including the German, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Bulgarian, Greek, Cypriot, and Romanian Foreign Ministers, among others, did not sign the document.

In the decision, which was approved with by a crushing majority, the EU parliament called for a renewed approach to the Israel-Palestinian conflict. "The parliament urges the EU to become a real political player in the Middle East peace process, which would benefit the troubled region as a whole." The statement also calls on the union to, "impose a ban on arms exports from the EU to Israel, to prohibit all arms imports from Israel into the EU, and lift the blockade on Gaza."

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4699850,00.html

Boycott? 'There are no Israeli products in Iceland'

Israelis living in Iceland are unfazed by the recent boycott of Israeli goods: 'I have lived here for 3 years and never seen an Israeli product.'

"Don’t get wound up about Reykjavik's decision to boycott Israel products, because it is meaningless," said Nimrod Ron, an Israeli musician living in Iceland, regarding the capital's recent decision to boycott Israeli goods. "I have lived in Iceland for three years, and have yet to see even one Israeli product."

According to him, "This decision isn’t based on anti-Semitism or even the Muslim community's influence which, numbering around 1,500 members, is very small. The Icelandic people simply feel that Israel is oppressing the Palestinians."

Ron, who lives in a small town near Reykjavík, plays the tuba in Iceland's symphonic orchestra. The small island, with a population of about 330,000, is home to a tiny Israeli population of about 50-100 people. In addition to the Israelis, Iceland is home to about 150 Jews. Most of the Israelis are students or married to Icelandic spouses.

Ron says he wasn’t surprised by the decision to boycott Israeli products because the issue was debated beforehand in the public media. "Iceland is a country which values humanitarianism above all else, to the point of naivety," he explained.

"Nothing is done out of economic motivations. They condemned the Russian occupation of Ukraine, and the Russians responded with an ultimatum – retract the condemnation or Russia will stop buying Icelandic products. But the Icelandic government didn’t give in, and stopped the large scale export of fish to Russia," he said. "They lost a lot of money as a result, but for them it’s a matter of principles."


rest: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4701735,00.html

Israel suspends EU role in peace process with Palestinians

 Israel said on Sunday it was suspending contacts with European Union bodies involved in peace efforts with the Palestinians after the bloc started requiring the labeling of exports from Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the foreign ministry to carry out "a reassessment of the involvement of EU bodies in everything that is connected to the diplomatic process with the Palestinians", a ministry statement said.

"Until completion of the reassessment, the Prime Minister has ordered a suspension of diplomatic contacts with the EU and its representatives in this matter."

The EU published new guidelines on Nov. 11 for labeling products made in Israeli settlements, a move Brussels said was technical but which Israel branded "discriminatory" and damaging to peace efforts with the Palestinians.

Drawn up over three years by the European Commission, the guidelines mean Israeli producers must explicitly label farm goods and other products that come from settlements built on land occupied by Israel if they are sold in the European Union.

The EU's position is that the lands Israel has occupied since the 1967 Middle East war - including the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights - are not part of the internationally recognized borders of Israel.

As such, goods from there cannot be labeled "Made in Israel" and should be labeled as coming from settlements, which the EU considers illegal under international law.

After the EU announcement, Netanyahu called it "hypocritical and a double standard", saying the EU was not taking similar steps in hundreds of territorial conflicts elsewhere in the world.

"The European Union should be ashamed of itself," he said while on an official visit in Washington earlier this month. "We do not accept the fact that Europe is labeling the side being attacked by terrorist acts."

FARMERS WORRIED

The development of settlements has been one of the obstacles to negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. U.S.-backed peace talks stalled in April 2014.

"It's an indication of origin, not a warning label," the EU ambassador to Israel, Lars Faaborg-Andersen, told Reuters after the bloc's decision was announced.

Britain, Belgium and Denmark already affix labels to Israeli goods, differentiating between those from Israel proper and those, particularly fruit and vegetables, that come from the Jordan Valley in the occupied West Bank.

Following the decision, all 28 EU member states will have to apply the same labeling.

Israel's economy ministry estimated this would affect goods worth about $50 million a year, including grapes and dates, wine, poultry, honey, olive oil and cosmetics made from Dead Sea minerals.

That is around a fifth of the $200-$300 million worth of goods produced in settlements each year, but a drop in the ocean next to the $30 billion of goods and services traded annually between Israel and the European Union.

Israeli farmers and wine growers in the West Bank have expressed worry about the impact on their business and some have begun diversifying into markets in Russia and Asia to escape EU rules.

In its statement, the Israeli foreign ministry said contacts with individual EU countries - it named Germany, France and Britain - would not be affected by Sunday's announcement.

A ministry official said Israel would cease assisting EU-sponsored projects intended for the Palestinians, but no specific instances or bodies were named.

http://news.yahoo.com/israel-suspends-eu-role-peace-process-palestinians-181646719.html

EU Vows to Take Part in Peace Process after Being Kicked Out by Israel for BDS Labeling Policy

“A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion.” (Proverbs 18:2)
obama any one?

One day after Israel announced that the EU’s involvement in the peace process is suspended, an EU spokeswoman said Monday that European officials would continue to work in the Quartet and with Arab parties to solve the conflict.

The move by Israel, announced Sunday, was made pending a “reassessment” of the EU’s decision to label products “Made in Israel” originating from Judea and Samaria, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. The EU’s labeling policy is being widely lauded as a major win for the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

The EU’s announcement was made on the sidelines of the COP21 climate change summit in Paris, where EU Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The EU will continue to solve the Israel-Palestinian conflict because “peace in the Middle East was an issue of interest to the entire international community, as well as all Europeans,” the spokeswoman said.

According to the EU spokeswoman, the relationship between Israel and the EU “good, broad and deep.” She added that the decision to label Israeli goods is not a new policy, but rather only implemented now for the first time.

Israel will continue to have government-to-government relations with the individual EU member states but has suspended its contact with EU-body institutions.

Israel’s Ministry of Economy estimates that the new labeling policy will affect goods worth around $50 million a year, such as wine, poultry, dates, grapes, honey, olive oil and cosmetics made from Dead Sea minerals.

Each year, approximately $200-$300 million worth of good originate from areas now being singled out by the Europeans. Annually, Israel and the EU exchange around $30 billion in goods and services.

Read more at https://www.breakingisraelnews.com/55085/eu-vows-take-part-peace-process-after-being-kicked-out-israel-bds-labeling-policy-jerusalem/#7YitsOXqjGsmzhdO.99

Airline kills U.S. route to avoid serving Jews

An international airline has dropped its New York-to-London route to avoid selling tickets to Jews.

Kuwait Airways canceled the route after the U.S. government ordered the company based in the Muslim nation to lift the prohibition.

WND reported in November that lawyer Jeffrey A. Lovitky pursued the complaint on behalf of a Jewish traveler who was refused service.

"Kuwait Airways is acting at the explicit direction of the government of Kuwait in excluding Israeli citizens from its flights between New York and London," he told WND.

The carrier bans Jews from its flights to Muslim nations that don't allow Jews to enter. But that's not an issue on the flight from New York to London, Lovitky argued.

The New York Post reported Kuwait Airways announced Dec. 15 it canceled the route, explaining it can't allow Israelis on the flight because Kuwait prohibits its citizens from doing business with citizens of the Jewish state.

The move was pre-emptive, as U.S. officials were preparing to withdraw the airline's permission to fly to New York.

The airline several times has refused to let travelers who hold passports from Israel buy tickets on New York-to-London flights.

"If you're so anti-Semitic that you would rather cancel a flight than provide service to Israeli passport holders, then good riddance," Councilman Rory Lancman told the Post.

He said it is unconscionable that Kuwait would discriminate against Israelis when it was the United States, including its Jewish soldiers, that liberated the nation from Saddam Hussein in the early 1990s.

The airline said it will still fly from New York City to Kuwait. Since Kuwait denies entry to Israelis, citizens of the Jewish state can't buy tickets on that flight.

It was Eldad Gatt, an Israeli citizen, who had tried to buy a ticket on the New York-to-London flight in the fall of 2013.

His lawyer said his lawsuit against the airline over its discrimination will continue.

Lovitky several years ago also exposed a similar practice by Delta Airlines that was due to a code-sharing arrangement with Saudi Arabian Airlines.

He told WND: "The Kuwaiti government's embrace of the Arab boycott of Israel is a manifestation of its deep hostility toward the Jewish people. I call upon the Congress to make it a crime for any company to boycott Israeli citizens, when such boycott is at the direction of a foreign government.

"And I call upon the secretary of transportation to emphatically reject this manifestation of bigotry against the Jewish people, by immediately terminating Kuwait Airways permit to fly between the United States and the United Kingdom," he said.

Lovitky said he filed a formal complaint with the Department of Transportation in 2013 alleging illegal discrimination. It was rejected because Kuwait Airways "was required to follow Kuwait law."

But he said when he filed a lawsuit on behalf of Gatt, the decision ultimately was reversed.


The lawsuit cited federal law that holds that "an air carrier or foreign air carrier may not subject a person, place, port, or type of traffic in foreign air transportation to unreasonable discrimination."

U.S. investigators ultimately concluded: "After a thorough review of the information provided by the parties, we find that KAC unreasonably discriminated against Mr. Gatt in violation of 48 U.S.C. [Paragraph] 41310 by refusing to sell him a ticket on its flight from JFK to LHR. Our conclusion that KAC unreasonably discriminated against Mr. Gatt is based on the history and intent of ... case law, and the permit authority granted to KAC to engage in scheduled foreign air transportation."

The DOT letter said, "A common carrier is ‘obliged to carry all persons who apply for passage, if the accommodations are sufficient, unless there is a proper excuse for refusal.'"

The instructions continued, "In cases interpreting the common law non-discrimination duty of common carriers, the Supreme Court has upheld the common carrier duty not to discriminate on the basis of race using the unreasonable discrimination standard under the Interstate Commerce Act."

The letter said: "We have applied these principles to determine whether KAC's refusal to sell a ticket to Mr. Gatt from JFK to LHR on the basis of his Israeli citizenship is unreasonable discrimination. KAC contends that its denial .... is reasonable because Kuwaiti law prohibits the carrier from selling a ticket to an Israeli passport holder. KAC emphasizes that the statutory penalties for violation of the Kuwaiti law include imprisonment with hard labor, in addition to a fine, as evidence that it cannot comply with U.S. law.

"This is not a proper justification for the denial of transportation as the penalties that allegedly have compelled KAC's conduct are part of a discriminatory statutory scheme. ... Moreover, this complaint does not involve travel to a country where the complainant is not allowed to disembark based on the laws of that country."

The airline and its legal representation did not respond to WND requests for comment.

"There is no question that a person holding a valid Israeli passport can depart the U.S. and enter the United Kingdom. As such, we find that it is unreasonable discrimination for KAC to refuse transport to Israeli citizens between the U.S. and a third country where their passports are recognized as valid travel documents and they are allowed to disembark based on the laws of that country," the DOT letter told the airline.

WND reported several years ago, after Lovitky had fought for access by Israelis to Saudi Arabian Airlines, that Bill de Blasio, then a candidate for mayor, blasted the airline for its position.

Lovitky also challenged Delta Airlines when it was working under a cooperative agreement with Saudi Arabia to feature flights directly to the kingdom. Delta was asking passengers about their religious affiliation, since Saudi Arabia does not allow Jews to enter.

Eventually, Delta agreed not to ask the questions.

http://www.prophecynewswatch.com/2015/December23/233.html

http://news.yahoo.com/hitlers-mein-kampf-returns-german-130419743.html
12/27/15
Hitler's 'Mein Kampf' returns to German market in new form

BERLIN (AP) — For 70 years since the Nazi defeat in World War II, copyright law has been used in Germany to prohibit the publication of "Mein Kampf" — the notorious anti-Semitic tome in which Adolf Hitler set out his ideology.

That will change next month when a new edition with critical commentary, the product of several years' work by a publicly funded institute, hits the shelves.

While historians say it could help fill a gap in Germans' knowledge of the era, Jewish groups are wary and German authorities are making it clear that they still won't tolerate any new "Mein Kampf" without annotations.

Under German law, a copyright expires at the end of the year 70 years after an author's death — in this case, Hitler's April 30, 1945, suicide in a Berlin bunker as the Soviet army closed in. That means Bavaria's state finance ministry, which holds the copyright, can no longer use it to prevent the work's publication beyond Dec. 31.

The book has been published in several other countries; in the U.S., for example, Bavaria never controlled the copyright.

In Germany, many argue that holding back "Mein Kampf" merely created mystique around the book. The idea of at least a partial version with critical commentary for the German market dates back as far as the late 1960s. The Munich-based Institute for Contemporary History, which is behind the new version, sought and was denied permission to produce the book in the mid-1990s when it published a volume of Hitler's speeches.

Hitler wrote "Mein Kampf" — or "My Struggle" — after he was jailed following the failed 1923 coup attempt known as the Beer Hall Putsch. Millions of copies were printed after the Nazis took power in 1933.

The rambling tome set out Hitler's ultranationalist, anti-Semitic and anti-communist ideology for his National Socialist German Workers Party, or Nazi party, airing the idea of a war of conquest in eastern Europe.

"The book should not be underestimated as a historical source and also as a key to understanding the history of National Socialism," the director of the Munich institute, Andreas Wirsching, said ahead of the new edition's mid-January publication.

"Among serious historians in Germany, you won't find one who is against a commented edition and hasn't been calling for one for years," said Sven Felix Kellerhoff, a journalist with the daily Die Welt and a historian who has written about "Mein Kampf" himself. "That goes from conservatives to the left."

View galleryFILE - In this  Dec. 11, 2015, file photo, a 1939-edition, …
FILE - In this Dec. 11, 2015, file photo, a 1939-edition, right, and different other editions of Ado …
Jewish opinion varies. The head of Germany's Central Council of Jews, Josef Schuster, says that knowledge of "Mein Kampf" is important in explaining Nazism and the Holocaust — so "we do not object to a critical edition, contrasting Hitler's racial theories with scientific findings, to be at the disposal of research and teaching."

One of his predecessors is more critical. Charlotte Knobloch, a Holocaust survivor who heads Munich's Jewish community, says she trusts the expertise of the institute's researchers but doubts that the new edition will achieve its aim of "demystifying and taking apart 'Mein Kampf.'"

It is likely to awaken interest "not in the commentary, but the original — and that remains highly dangerous," Knobloch said. "It could still have an impact because both of the core ideas are timeless: ultranationalism and racism."

Given that "Mein Kampf" is already widely available in university libraries and on the internet, "we don't see a need to print more copies of it and thus ensure mass distribution, including of an annotated version," said Ronald Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress.

The publishers say they understand the objections, while noting that the book is already freely available secondhand and online, not to mention in other languages, without annotations. Christian Hartmann, who led the team putting together the heavily annotated version, says that "we are linking Hitler's text and our commentary firmly together — we are practically encircling Hitler with our remarks."

Hartmann said they have attempted "the most intensive examination and rebuttal that is possible" of "Mein Kampf."

Amid disagreement over the annotated edition's merits, there is wide agreement that Hitler still shouldn't be left to speak uncontradicted.

In mid-2014, Germany's federal and state justice ministers agreed that new editions without commentary should continue to be prevented after the copyright expires, likely using laws against incitement.

It remains to be seen whether their resolve will be tested. There are currently no known plans to publish a Hitler-only "Mein Kampf" in Germany.

After the end of World War II, the Allies turned over what remained of Hitler's assets — the Nazi leader was officially registered as living in Munich — to the Bavarian government. Those included the copyright of the German original of "Mein Kampf." Authorities in Munich subsequently ensured it wasn't republished, though there was no official ban on the book.

That use of the copyright "of course had its reasons," Wirsching said. In the early years of West Germany, "there were any number of Hitler admirers; there wasn't just neo-Nazism, there was also old Nazism."

But "this is a different generation, a different political culture, a solid political democracy that in my view can definitely withstand an edition with commentary."

That Bavarian government took the same view when, in 2012, it said it would put 500,000 euros ($545,000) into backing the project and was even considering a version specifically aimed at students. But the following year, governor Horst Seehofer did an about-turn, arguing that supporting publication of "Mein Kampf" didn't fit with Bavaria's participation in a drive to have modern Germany's main far-right party banned.

However, the Institute for Contemporary History insisted that it would go ahead, Bavarian officials then indicated that they wouldn't object, and the researchers didn't have to return the funding.

The new edition of "Mein Kampf," which has expanded to nearly 2,000 pages with the Munich institute's commentary, roughly double the length of the original, doesn't appear likely to fly off the shelves. With a print run of up to 4,000 copies, it costs 59 euros ($64).

There won't be an e-book, since the edition's layout can't be adapted to the format, but publishers are considering an online edition, perhaps in 2017.

Any proceeds will go to charity, Wirsching said, but given the costs of dedicating historians to the task and producing the voluminous tome, he doesn't expect any.

"In the end, I think this will be an entirely nonprofit enterprise," he said.

http://www.nowtheendbegins.com/denial-of-nazi-holocaust-against-jews-on-rise-in-eastern-europe/
DENIAL OF THE NAZI HOLOCAUST AGAINST THE JEWS ON RISE IN EASTERN EUROPE
Rabbi Avraham Krieger, head of the Shem Olam Institute for Holocaust education and research, believes the new Holocaust deniers are driven by a psychological motive, namely an attempt to dissolve the perception of the Holocaust as a unique phenomenon in favor of a historical description which will minimize the feelings of guilt among the countries which actively participated - or whose citizens actively participated - in the murder of Jews.

THE TESTIMONIES ARE FADING AWAY, THE MEMORIAL SITES ARE TURNING INTO ENTERTAINMENT CENTERS, AND THE HISTORICAL STORY IS SEEN AS JUST ANOTHER “JEWISH NARRATIVE”: IF ANYONE THOUGHT THAT HOLOCAUST DENIAL WAS A MARGINAL PHENOMENON AMONG A FEW ANTI-SEMITES AND ISRAEL HATERS, EVIDENCE SHOWS THAT IS IT A MUCH WIDER, MORE WELL-ESTABLISHED AND DANGEROUS PHENOMENON THAT IS RECEIVING REINFORCEMENT ON THE GROUND FROM EASTERN EUROPEAN COUNTRIES.

“And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.” Genesis 12:3 (KJV)

EDITOR’S NOTE: WHEN I WAS A VERY YOUNG CHILD, I REMEMBER SEEING THE TATTOOS OF THE MEN IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD WHO HAD FOUGHT IN WWII. I ALSO REMEMBER SEEING THE TATTOOS OF THOSE WHO HAD BEEN IN THE NAZI CONCENTRATION CAMPS, AWAITING EXECUTION SIMPLY FOR BEING JEWISH. IN THE EIGHTH GRADE, I WAS MADE TO WATCH A VERY RAW, BLACK AND WHITE DOCUMENTARY OF THE NAZI ATROCITIES. I NEVER FORGOT IT. TODAY, THE LORD GOD OF ABRAHAM HAS GIVEN ME A WEBSITE THAT REACHES OVER 1 MILLION PEOPLE PER MONTH AROUND THE WORLD.
AT NTEB, WE WILL NEVER FORGET THE NAZI HOLOCAUST OF THE JEWS AND COUNTLESS MILLIONS OF OTHERS KILLED DURING THE WAR. AM YISRAEL CHAI.

In Lithuania, for example, people are doing everything to downplay the significance of the horrors of the war against the Jews as a unique event in the history of mankind, and in Ukraine a famous mass murder site has turned into a thriving jogging spot.

According to Dr. Efraim Zuroff, a Nazi hunter and director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center office in Jerusalem, many countries have adopted an intentional policy leading to de facto Holocaust denial. While researchers and historians are trying to fight the new phenomenon and to get western Europe to join the battle, the State of Israel is actually standing back and doing nothing.

HOLOCAUST ATROCITIES – DACHAU CONCENTRATION CAMP 1945



Speaking at the Shem Olam Institute‘s international conference “A Past that Doesn’t Pass,” which opened in Europe Monday, Dr. Zuroff pointed at Lithuania as the country leading the change. He noted that it initiated a change in the definition of “genocide,” thereby essentially “uniting” the memory of the Holocaust with the memory of communism.

IN UKRAINE, THE PARLIAMENT APPROVED A LAW BANNING DENIAL OF THE COMMUNIST HOLOCAUST AND IMPOSING A TWO-YEAR PRISON SENTENCE ON THOSE VIOLATING IT.

According to the Nazi hunter, this is part of an ongoing attempt to convince the world that there were two holocausts, and that therefore the European Jews’ Holocaust was not a unique radical event. “August 23 is marked as a memorial day for the victims of the totalitarian regimes,” he noted. “The memory of the Holocaust is being pushed away as part of this process.”

Rabbi Avraham Krieger, head of the Shem Olam Institute for Holocaust Education and Research, believes the new Holocaust deniers are driven by a psychological motive, namely an attempt to dissolve the perception of the Holocaust as a unique phenomenon in favor of a historical description which will minimize the feelings of guilt among the countries which actively participated – or whose citizens actively participated – in the murder of Jews.

Dr. Zuroff sees it too. He says there is an attempt to conceal and blur the eastern Europeans’ role in the massacre. “In Lithuania there was a systematic killing of Jews by the local population,” he explained. “That is the reason why 96 percent of the Jews there did not survive and many communities were completely erased. The intentional goal is to conceal this fact.

“The mass murderers of Jews among the local population are perceived as national heroes because of their war against the communists, and streets, squares and governmental institutions have been named after them. How can anyone acknowledge their role in the annihilation if the murderers are considered heroes?”

Lithuania is not alone. According to the two researchers, “soft denial” is taking place in Baltic countries like Estonia and Latvia, as well as in Poland, Croatia and Hungary.

BODIES OF THOUSANDS OF JEWS UNDER A GREEN PARK

“For example Joanna Bator, a local historian, describes construction works for the **** of a square named after a local hero who fought communism on the street which included the entrance gate into the ghetto,” says Krieger. “It can also be interpreted in a very innocent manner, but of all places in Warsaw, they had to do it on a street with such a significant historical memory?

“There is also a plan to erect a huge monument for Righteous Among the Nations in the center of the ghetto, although one already exists opposite the Holocaust museum in Warsaw. There seems to be an attempt to downplay the fact that many Poles were far from being righteous gentiles, but were rather played a role in the annihilation in wide areas in Poland as the Nazis’ active partners. There are Poles who are finding it difficult to accept this fact and of course to take responsibility for its meaning.”

RAVENSBRUCK AND BUCHENWALD CONCENTRATION CAMPS: PART 1



According to Dr. Zuroff, sites of mass killing across Europe are being deserted or turned into parks which attract families on Sundays. In the Majdanek concentration camp it happened even when the murdered Jews’ bones were still scattered around in a visible manner.

The Babi Yar mass murder site in the heart of Kiev, where one of the deadliest massacres in Eastern Europe took place, has become a green band of jogging and baby strollers. “Apart from a symbolic monument, there is no trace of the fact that under the thick plants there are thousands of bodies of Jews who were systematically eliminated.”

WHEN DID YOU REALIZE SOMETHING WAS GOING ON?

“It didn’t happen right away,” Rabbi Krieger admits. “The person who headed the Holocaust commemoration enterprise in Poland until 2009 was a Pole who had been sent to Auschwitz himself, and he was very committed to the matter. Since then, a wave of new appointments began in all of the country’s commemoration sites, and there are constant changes. I’m not sure that they are officially guided, but this is the new wind blowing there.

RAVENSBRUCK AND BUCHENWALD CONCENTRATION CAMPS: PART 2



“There are all kinds of ‘renovations’ taking place in concentration camps, covering historical truths which took place there. In Chełmno, for example, there was a pit with Jewish items and human remains, so they went and covered it all up with gravel. They didn’t leave a trace of what used to be there, not even a sign. There is no trace of the large holes which were used for the horrific act of destroying the bodies.

“MUSEUMS ARE TURNING INTO A PLACE FOR THE PRESENTATION OF THIS LOCAL NARRATIVE, INSTEAD OF PRESENTING HISTORY. THIS JOINS ALL KINDS OF CONCRETE HOLOCAUST DENIALS BY LOCAL HISTORIANS IN NEW STUDIES. IF ONCE WE WITNESSED A SPIRIT OF TAKING RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE PAST – IT IS NOW GONE.”

According to Dr. Zuroff, Eastern European countries’ efforts to “conceal the evidence” and blur history have increased since the Baltic countries became part of the European Union. “It’s mostly common there because they really have something to hide,” he said. “The fact that they were living under a communist regime prevented them from holding an open debate on the truth.”

ANTI-SEMITIC BUT FRIENDLY TOWARDS ISRAEL

“It took France 40 years to acknowledge the crimes of the Vichy government (a Nazi puppet regime established in central France). And most importantly, it’s a governmental-diplomatic trend, not a private initiative or social phenomenon. The EU is keeping quiet. There are no condemnations or appeals on their part on this issue or a request to maintain the European narrative of the Holocaust.”

And where is the State of Israel in this grim picture? “I am very embarrassed,” Zuroff admits. “I care about the state so much and I feel bad criticizing it, but the situation is not good and I must present the dangers created by its silence. The feeling is that a state which sees itself as the inheritor of the Nazis’ victims, and was first in line to receive financial benefits, has an interest in keeping quiet. So it’s keeping quiet.”

THE RESEARCHER’S EXPLANATION IS THAT “THE LEADING COUNTRIES IN HOLOCAUST DENIAL TODAY HAVE GOOD RELATIONS WITH ISRAEL, EVEN IF THEY MAY BE ANTI-SEMITIC TOWARDS JEWS. SO INSTEAD OF CRYING OUT AGAINST WHAT WAS DONE TO THE HOLOCAUST VICTIMS, ISRAEL IS KEEPING QUIET.”

According to Zuroff, the United States, which became slightly involved in the issue in the past in an attempt to influence the situation, is keeping quiet too, as are France and Germany.

“The fact that there are countries in Europe which have not taken responsibility for the Holocaust must be acknowledged. In Austria, for example, they are still using all kinds of legal measures to prevent the prosecution of Nazi war criminals. Only recently, they rejected our request to try a woman who was responsible for putting women in gas chambers, arguing that she only played “a passive role” which she cannot be prosecuted for.”

IS ANYTHING BEING DONE NONETHELESS?

“A book which is expected to be released in Lithuania next month is going to create a major scandal,” Dr. Zuroff says. “A famous Lithuanian author, Ruta Vanagaite, wrote a book with me about the Lithuanians’ role in the murder of Jews during the Holocaust. She began showing an interest in the issue after discovering that her family members had been involved in it. We studied the scope and the motivation and listened to testimonies from eyewitnesses. It’s a very grim picture. Let’s hope it raises a discussion on the issue.” source

Following Incendiary Remarks, Israel Slams Doors on Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom

“Let not the gates of Jerusalem be opened until the sun be hot; and while they stand on guard, let them shut the doors, and bar ye them; and let watches be appointed of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, every one in his watch, and every one to be over against his house.” (Nehemiah 7:3)

Following an accusation by Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallström alleging that Israel carries out “extrajudicial executions” of Palestinian terrorists, her Israeli counterpart Tzipi Hotovely said that Israel is “closing its doors to official visits from Sweden.”

In remarks made to a cadets’ course for future Israeli diplomats, Deputy Foreign Minister Hotovely said that Wallström is “de facto supporting” terrorism with her recent incendiary remarks.

On Tuesday, Wallström called for an investigation into alleged extrajudicial killings of Palestinian attackers, referring to those Palestinians who are killed while attempting to carry out terror attacks against Israelis and Jews.

Wallström told lawmakers, “It is vital that there are thorough, credible investigations into these deaths in order to clarify and bring about possible accountability.”

Hotovely called the remark “a terrible combination of foolishness and diplomatic stupidity.”

Israel’s Foreign Ministry responded the same day with a statement strongly condemning Wallström’s comments, calling them “delusional.”

“In her irresponsible and delusional statements, the Swedish foreign minister provides tailwind to terror, and thus encourages violence,” the Foreign Ministry said.

Israeli politicians across the spectrum also spoke out against Wallström. Zionist Union Chairman Isaac Herzog wrote on his Facebook page that the comment “backs terrorism” and “helps the murderous terrorists who do everything possible to stop us from [reaching a two-state solution].”

Herzog went on to question why Wallström did not make similar accusations against other countries that have killed terrorists in self-defense. “It’s interesting that Sweden did not have a similar response when police in Paris killed the terrorists, as they had to do, and it will be interesting to see how Sweden will react when terrorists carry out attacks within its territory. Will it also want to pat them on the head because they had difficult childhoods?” he asked sarcastically.

Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz (Likud) said that Wallström’s selective remarks targeting Israel revealed a double standard based in discrimination against Jews. “A person who looks at the war on terror worldwide and comes to the conclusion that Israel is the only country whose tactics must be investigated is anti-Semitic,” he stated.

“The only thing the foreign minister of Sweden hasn’t done is physically join the Palestinian terrorists and stab Jews,” said former foreign minister Avigdor Liberman.

The Swedish foreign minister has a history of making accusations against Israel. She first called Israeli shootings of terrorists “extrajudicial executions” in early December. Wallström added that Israel’s reaction to Palestinian terror was “disproportionate”, citing the disparity in casualties on each side.

Following the coordinated Paris terror attack in November which killed 130 people, Wallström blamed the radical extremism which led to the attack on Muslim frustration in the Middle East, specifically mentioning Palestinians.

Read more at http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/58888/following-incendiary-remarks-israel-slams-doors-on-swedish-foreign-minister-margot-wallstrom-jerusalem/#gJxM7s8fwlPPOjIk.99

Israel to bar Sweden from any role in future diplomatic process with Palestinians

Sweden will not have any role to play in the Israeli-Palestinian diplomatic process as a result of Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom’s hostility toward Israel, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Wednesday.

The statement came as the ministry announced that its deputy director-general for Western Europe, Aviv Shir-On, called in Swedish ambassador Carl Magnus Nesser to protest Wallstrom’s comments.

The decision to summons Nesser was made by Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who directed Shir-On to protest not only the statements, but to register the government and the country’s anger at what they see as Sweden’s imbalance and hostile attitude toward Israel.

Wallstrom on Tuesday called for an investigation to determine if Israel was guilty of extrajudicial killings of Palestinians during the current wave of terrorism. “It is vital that there is a thorough, credible investigation into these deaths in order to clarify and bring about possible accountability,” she said during a parliamentary debate, according to the Swedish news agency TT.

The Foreign Ministry said Wallstrom’s comments indicate that “she does not understand what is happening in our region and is apparently not aware of the difficult situation facing Israeli citizens, and the continuous danger of murderous terrorism.”

Foreign Ministry director- general Dore Gold, speaking to a group from the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said that anyone attacking Israel over its right to defend itself from terrorism is “in practical terms encouraging terrorism.”

Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nachshon said Wallstrom would not be welcome to visit Israel. His comments served as a clarification to remarks made earlier in the day by Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely who said Israel was closing its door to visits from Swedish officials in the wake of Wallstrom’s words.

Speaking during a tour of Samaria with cadets in the Foreign Ministry diplomatic training course, Hotovely said “Israel was sending in the clearest manner possible a very sharp message to Sweden saying that it is backing terrorism and giving a tail wind to Islamic State to act throughout Europe.”

Wallstrom’s comments were a “bad combination of folly and diplomatic stupidity, and Israel will close its door to official visits from Sweden,” Hotovely said.

Knesset House Committee chairman David Bitan (Likud), meanwhile, called in a letter to Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein for a cancellation of the Israel-Sweden Parliamentary Friendship Group. The letter was also sent to the chairman of the group, MK Eyal Ben-Reuven (Zionist Union).

According to Bitan, Wallstrom “positions the terrorists as victims, thus encouraging hatred of Israel in the world and backing terrorism.”

Ben-Reuven responded that the friendship group will continue defending Israel and explaining what is wrong with what Wallstrom’s comments.

“The Swedish foreign minister’s behavior and statements are very serious.

Israel has a moral army and a strong judiciary. Therefore, Sweden and no other country can involve itself in our internal processes,” Ben-Reuven stated.

He said that because her comments were so harsh, there was a need “to explain ourselves to the Swedish parliamentarians and public, by showing Israel’s stances and why they are just.

We cannot run away from the arena; we must struggle and win.”

The Palestinian Authority, meanwhile, praised Sweden and welcomed the call for an inquiry into Israeli “extrajudicial killings.”

The PA Foreign Ministry called on all countries to endorse “this courageous and humane” position, saying it is aimed at preserving the peace process.

The ministry urged all countries to put aside “political fears” and ignore Israel’s “systematic state terrorism.” It accused Israel of hindering the implementation of international law.

The PA ministry condemned Israel’s “ferocious campaign and political terrorism” against the Swedish foreign minister. It said the campaign was designed to cover up Israeli “crimes” against the Palestinians.

The ministry also condemned Israel for pursuing its “brutal extrajudicial executions” of Palestinians and renewed its call for an investigation into “war crimes and crimes against humanity perpetrated by the government of Benjamin Netanyahu.”

Tayseer Khaled, a member of the PLO Executive Committee, expressed hope that the Arab League secretary- general would visit Sweden as soon as possible to voice support for Stockholm’s “brave political and humane positions.”

In addition, Khaled denounced Israeli opposition figures, such as opposition leader Isaac Herzog, who also came out against Wallstrom’s statements, saying they were “feeding fascist and radical trends” in Israel.

http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Israel-to-bar-Sweden-from-any-role-in-future-diplomatic-process-with-Palestinians-441435

Western Europe Jewish migration to Israel hits all-time high

Jewish immigration to Israel from western Europe has reached an all-time high as a result of a rise in anti-Semitic attacks, a leading nonprofit group said Thursday, as France's beleaguered Jewish community grapples with whether to refrain from donning Jewish skull caps for their own safety.

The Jewish Agency, which works closely with the Israeli government and acts as a link to Jews around the world, told The Associated Press that 9,880 western European Jews immigrated to Israel in 2015 — the highest annual number ever. The figure is more than 10 percent over the previous year and over double the 2013 level.

The vast majority, close to 8,000, came from France, where a rise in anti-Semitic attacks has shattered the sense of security of the world's third-largest Jewish population.

Just this week, a machete-wielding teen attacked a Jewish teacher in the southern French town of Marseille, prompting a local Jewish authority to ask fellow Jews to refrain from wearing their traditional skullcaps to stay safe. That sparked counter calls from other French and Jewish officials who said such a move would be a capitulation to terror.

Close to 800 Jews emigrated from Britain in 2015. Italy and Belgium were next on the list.

"That a record number of European Jews feel that Europe is no longer their home should alarm European leaders and serve as a wake-up call for all who are concerned about the future of Europe," said Jewish Agency Chairman Natan Sharansky. "At the same time, the fact that Israel has become the number one destination for European Jews seeking to build a better future elsewhere is a tribute to the appeal of life in Israel and the values the Jewish state represents."

Experts say European Jews have not felt this threatened since World War II, when 6 million Jews were murdered in the Nazi Holocaust. Jews have been targeted in Belgium, Denmark and other European countries, but France has seen the worst of it. Jews have increasingly reported assaults and intimidation, mostly from Muslim extremists. While some attacks have been linked to anger at Israeli policies toward the Palestinians, most have been anti-Semitic in nature.

France is still reeling from a series of attacks in Paris on Nov. 13 that killed 130 people and just marked the anniversary of attacks on the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo and a kosher grocery store which killed 17 people. In each case, the Islamic State group claimed responsibility.

France's Jewish community of some 500,000 is the largest in Europe. Jewish schools and synagogues are often surrounded by soldiers in combat fatigues who patrol the streets with automatic rifles. Though Jews make up less than 1 percent of the population, French officials say more than 50 percent of all reported racist attacks in 2014 were directed against them.

Concerns about anti-Semitism in France had already been high, but 2014 saw a record number of French Jews immigrate to Israel. That figure was easily eclipsed in 2015, prompting French authorities to warn about a steeper decline and saying a future France without Jews would "no longer be France."

On Tuesday, Zvi Ammar, a Jewish community leader in Marseille, said he is asking Jews to go without skullcaps "until better days." Observant Jews wear a skullcap, or kippa in Hebrew, in a sign of reverence to a higher power above them.

Ammar's call came a day after a 15-year-old Turkish Kurd attacked and wounded a Jewish teacher on a street in Marseille — France's second-largest city — then told police after his arrest that he acted in the name of the Islamic State group.

At his annual address to foreign journalists, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the skullcap controversy.

"Every Jew everywhere should be able to live safely and enjoy the protection of the authorities and I commend the government of France and other governments in Europe for taking the important stance on this issue," he said.

"At the same time, every Jew should know that they have a home in Israel," Netanyahu added. "As far as wearing a kippa, it's the same thing. They have a right, should have a right and enjoy the right to wear a kippa."

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/164bbc1445aa42fc883ee85e4439523a/western-europe-jewish-migration-israel-hits-all-time-high

Operation French Kiss: 200,000 French Jews Planning Aliyah

“And the LORD said unto him: ‘This is the land which I swore unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, saying: I will give it unto thy seed.” (Deuteronomy 34:4)

Well before the November 13 Paris terror attack and the recent incidents in which Jews across France have been attacked by violent Muslims, many French Jews were already considering Aliyah to Israel, polling service Étude IFOP discovered in an extensive survey conducted last September and published this weekend in JSS News, a French webzine produced in Israel.

The survey offers a peek at the views of the French Jewish community, the largest in Europe and third largest in the world. According to the survey’s findings, as many as 43% of French Jews are planning to make Aliyah. As the commonly accepted figure for the size of the French Jewish community is 500,000, then Israel is about to be conquered by as many as 200,000 French Jews and Netanya would surpass Tel Aviv as the second-largest city in Israel.

At the same time, as many as 43% of French Jews are considering a move to countries other than Israel, the most popular of which are the UK, Canada and the US. It is possible, however, that these two groups might be the same group mulling several choices, while an estimated 57% of the Jewish community would still prefer to remain in France, but probably without a yarmulke.

Bless your home today with this unique Hebrew prayer
A full 43% of the French Jews surveyed said they had been attacked for being Jewish, and 18% reported being attacked several times. 51% said they had been threatened for being Jewish and 63% had been ridiculed for the same reason. These figures should be particularly troubling for the French Jewish leadership, which last week attacked Marseilles Jewish community official Tzvi Amar who urged his members to take off their yarmulkes in the street, after Benjamin Amsalem, a local Jewish school teacher, was stabbed with a machete outside a synagogue.

According to the survey, as many as 59% of French Jews have family members who have migrated to another country recently.

Here is a cooling down fact: the survey was conducted among 724 French citizens who define themselves as Jewish and have at least one Jewish parent. So while the figures sound great if you’re a Zionist, and they may represent a trend, it’s probably too early to expect all these chickens to roost.

On the other hand, the fact that the survey was conducted in September, well before the explosion of terrorist and anti-Semitic attacks in France, it could very well mean that these numbers have only increased and that rentals in Netanya are about to climb sky-high.


Read more at http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/59290/operation-french-kiss-200000-french-jews-planning-aliyah/#mEC77vIKZzyetv0K.99

EU Attempts to Heal Schism With Israel Over Product Labeling

“When a man’s ways please the LORD, He maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him.” (Proverbs 16:7)

Israel is discreetly holding talks with the European Union (EU) in an effort to resolve a diplomatic crisis following the EU’s recent decision to remove “Made in Israel” labels from products originating beyond Israel’s 1967 lines.

The EU and Israel are jointly working on ways to restore relations so that negotiations can resume in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, the Jerusalem Post reported, citing Israel Radio.

NO to BDS and YES to Israel!

A delegation led by Helga Schmid—the EU’s deputy secretary general for the External Action Service and a senior adviser to EU foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini—last week secretly met with Israeli Foreign Ministry Director General Dore Gold, representatives of the Israeli National Security Council, and other officials in Israel, according to Haaretz.

“We told them that the decisions of the EU’s council of foreign ministers and the decision on the labeling of products [beyond the 1967 lines] were unilateral and in fact adopted the Palestinian narrative. That’s no way to conduct a respectful dialogue,” an unnamed Jerusalem official was quoted as saying.


Read more at http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/61102/eu-israel-reportedly-secret-talks-resolve-labeling-spat/#EVZq7xwuCqxMwbmk.99

13 Year-Old Jewish Boy Brutally Assaulted Outside Paris Synagogue

“African origin” men assaulted a 13 year-old Jewish boy in Paris outside a synagogue.
The men called the boy a “dirty Jew” and beat his head on a post.
Via Everyday Antisemitism:

A 13-year-old Jewish boy was brutally attacked by three men on Saturday outside a Paris synagogue, where he was meeting his father. Seeing his skullcap, the men allegedly called him a “dirty Jew” and punched him several times, tore off his skullcap, grabbed him by the hair and smashed his head against a post. The attackers then ran away as passersby approached. Police are looking for three men of “African origin”.

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2016/03/13-year-old-jewish-boy-brutally-assaulted-outside-paris-synagogue/

More Anti-Semitism From...You Guessed Who
"Kill the Jews!"

While Europe is busy treating its Islamicized sectors with kid gloves, the real targets of discrimination are often ignored.

Two Jewish teens were harassed on the streets of London Monday by a man who screamed out "Kill the Jews!"

Not surprisingly, his venom was preceded by the phrase "Allahu Akbar!" and a certain expletive.

    "Allahu Akbar! F---ing Jews! Kill the Jews!" the man shouted.

Israel National News reports that police arrested the man before anyone could be harmed. The pair of teens, aged 14 and 17, respectively, were targeted in the Stamford Hill neighborhood. 



    Though the assailant did not physically harm the two, he remained in the area and yelled anti-Semitic remarks to other passers-by. The two teens quickly called Shomrim, the local Jewish neighborhood watch organization, for help.

    Police officers arrested the man for disturbing the public order with racially aggravating circumstances. He has not been identified and is only described as being 23 years old.

    Chaim Hochhauser, a member of the Shomrim, says, "Anti Semitism and all types of hate crime are unacceptable. I urge victims and witnesses to report such incidents immediately. Such incidents should never be accepted as the norm, no matter how regularly these incidents sadly happen."

Incidents like these should not take place anywhere, let alone in so-called civilized societies. Truth is, however, it's happening everywhere, from London to France and Australia to Uruguay.

Even more disturbing is that almost identical incidents and some far worse, are happening to American Jews right on the streets of Los Angeles, New York, and Miami, where a rabbi was shot dead.

Meanwhile, moronic liberal outlets actually question, "why are anti-Semitic attacks doubling in countries like France?" As if the answer isn't glaringly obvious. And other mainstream outlets simply minimize the fact that Jews are being targeted by lumping them with reports that falsely claim Muslims are targeted for hate crimes equally.

The fact remains, anti-Semitism is alive and well in all its old and new incarnations.

http://www.truthrevolt.org/news/more-anti-semitism-fromyou-guessed-who

British MP called to ethnically cleanse Israeli Jews

MP Naz Shah said all Israeli Jews should be 'relocated' to the US and suggested Britain would pay 'transportation costs.'.

UK Labour Party MP Naz Shah has declared that all Israeli Jews should be "relocated" to the United States. She even suggested that the British government could pay for the "transportation costs" of removing Jews from the Middle East.

Her statements were uncovered by the website Guido Fawkes, which found a number of social media posts, including one that claimed the total cost would be "less than 3 years of defense spending," to which she added the phrase "problem solved."

Among her other posts was a link to a blog promoting conspiracy theories about Jews secretly ruling the government and warning that "The Jews are rallying to the poll."

In January, the Israeli embassy in England complained about Shah denying evidence of Palestinian rock-throwers killing Israeli children, even though she was provided with victims' names and information.

When asked for comment, Shah acknowledged writing the posts, but claims that she has become more moderate since being elected. "This post from two years ago was made before I was an MP, does not reflect my views and I apologise for any offence it has caused."

Shah represents Bradford West and defeated George Galloway in last year's election. While Galloway is notorious in his own right for his anti-Israeli sentiments and actions, Shah belongs to the main opposition party and is on the Home Affairs Select Committee, which is currently investigating anti-Jewish hatred in the UK.

The Labour Party has come under heavy criticism in recent months for its alleged tolerance of anti-Semitism.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/211438#.Vx_07_lsO70

Bradford MP Naz Shah quits as McDonnell's PPS after antisemitic posts
Labour MP resigns as aide over ‘relocate Israel to US’ post but remains on committee reporting on antisemitism

well that was fast. are they going to arrest her for spreading hate as they would any preacher on the street over there?

The Bradford MP Naz Shah has stepped down as the parliamentary private secretary to the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, over antisemitic Facebook posts.

In a series of social media posts, Shah said Israel should “relocate to the US” and posted an article that likened Zionism to al-Qaida.

Shah has since apologised, saying: “I deeply regret the hurt I have caused.” It emerged later that she had stepped down as PPS to McDonnell.

Shah, who was elected MP for Bradford West last May, shared a picture of Israel’s outline superimposed on to a map of the US under the headline “Solution for Israel-Palestine Conflict – Relocate Israel into United States”, with the comment “problem solved”.

In the post shared in 2014 – nine months before Shah became an MP – it went on to say that Americans would “welcome Israelis with open arms” and that the relocation would bring peace to the Middle East by ending “foreign interference”.

The post suggested the US had “plenty of land” to accommodate Israel as a 51st state, allowing Palestinians to “get their life and their land back”.

Alongside the post, Shah added a smiley-face emoji and suggested she would lobby the prime minister to adopt the plan.

It added that Israeli people would be welcome and safe in the US, while the “transportation cost” would be less than three years’ worth of Washington’s support for Israeli defence spending.

Shah added a note suggesting the plan might “save them some pocket money”.

After the posting was highlighted by the Guido Fawkes website, Shah released a statement in which she said: “This post from two years ago was made before I was an MP, does not reflect my views and I apologise for any offence it has caused.”

Shah is a member of the House of Commons home affairs select committee, which is conducting an inquiry into the rise of antisemitism.

In a statement released by the Labour party, she confirmed her resignation as McDonnell’s PPS. She said: “I deeply regret the hurt I have caused by comments made on social media before I was elected as an MP.

“I made these posts at the height of the Gaza conflict in 2014, when emotions were running high around the Middle East conflict. But that is no excuse for the offence I have given, for which I unreservedly apologise.

“In recognition of that offence I have stepped down from my role as PPS to the shadow chancellor John McDonnell. I will be seeking to expand my existing engagement and dialogue with Jewish community organisations, and will be stepping up my efforts to combat all forms of racism, including antisemitism.”

Jonathan Sacerdoti, director of communications at the Campaign Against Antisemitism, said it would be hard for his organisation to take the parliamentary committee’s inquiry into the rise of antisemitism seriously if Shah remained part of it.

“One cannot simply apologise for ‘any offence caused’ and expect a evidence of gross and brazen antisemitism to disappear,” Sacerdoti said.

“Once again the Labour party has been revealed to have within its ranks people who express extreme prejudice towards Jewish people in their public statements. Once again the party has failed to find these statements itself, and reject those who freely and willingly express them.

“How can we believe Labour when it says it takes the problem of Jew-hatred seriously when it repeatedly defends antisemitic MPs? It seems that Jeremy Corbyn’s anti-racism policy only operates when convenient.”

Sacerdoti added: “We have offered to assist the select committee in its work investigating antisemitism. However, if Naz Shah remains on the committee it will be hard for those of us giving evidence to take the inquiry seriously.”

Earlier this month Shah criticised Abdul Zaman, the deputy chairman of Bradford’s Conservative Association, after he allegedly gave a speech “endorsing misogyny and antisemitism.”

Shah was instrumental in forcing the association to suspend Zaman after he was accused of speaking passionately about “clan politics” during a speech to start Tory candidate Sajid Akhtar’s campaign for election to Bradford council. Shah wrote to David Cameron complaining about Zaman’s speech.

But Barry Whitaker, chairman of the Bradford Conservative Association, said at the time that Zaman had said nothing wrong but confirmed that the party had suspended him while an investigation was carried out.

Now councillor Simon Cooke, leader of the Conservative group on Bradford council, has written to Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn demanding Shah’s resignation.

He said: “She should be treated in the same way that Abdul Zaman was and it will be interesting to see Labour’s response to this.

“I have been very disappointed with her comments and it is deeply concerning that she made them just months before being elected.”

The standfirst and second paragraph were amended to make it clear that the controversial posting said “Relocate Israel into United States”.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/apr/26/bradford-labour-mp-naz-shah-quits-john-mcdonnells-pps-antisemitic-facebook-posts

Rising anti-Semitism forces Jews out of Paris suburbs

Jews who have lived peacefully in the suburbs of Paris are now having to move to other parts of the country or head for Israel to escape anti-Semtism.

 When Alain Benhamou walked into his apartment near Paris in July 2015 and saw the words "dirty Jew" scrawled on the wall, he knew it was time to leave.

It was his second such break-in in less than three months and the 71-year-old no longer felt welcome in Bondy, a Parisian suburb he had called home for more than 40 years.

"Until the years 2000-2005, the town was nice and quiet, with 250 to 300 Jewish families and synagogues full on the Sabbath," Benhamou says.

"Now, only about a hundred Jewish families remain."

Benhamou is part of a growing number of French Jews who have effectively become internal refugees, fleeing insecurity and seeking protection in numbers in an atmosphere they say is increasingly hostile, and often expressed in relation to conflict in the Middle East.

He moved a few miles south to Villemomble, where there is a larger and more established Jewish community.

But others have fled France altogether.

A record 8,000 or so French Jews moved to Israel in 2015 alone, according to Israeli figures, in the year that a jihadist gunman linked to the Charlie Hebdo newspaper attackers killed four Jews in a kosher supermarket.

 France has the largest Jewish population in Europe, estimated at 500,000 to 600,000 people.

Half of them live in the Paris region but their numbers have declined steadily over the past 15 years, researchers say.

Jerome Fourquet of polling firm IFOP says the change started around 2000 following a fresh surge of violence between Israel and the Palestinians, known as the second intifada.

With France also home to Europe's largest Muslim community, which counts around five million members, the bloodshed in the Middle East unleashed a wave of unrest, particularly in the Paris region which saw a surge in anti-Semitic acts and threats, he says.

A disappearing community

Benhamou still lives within the sprawling Seine-Saint-Denis department that sits northeast of the capital and combines run-down immigrant ghettos with trendy new gentrified business districts.

In the last 15 years, it has gone from being one of France's most densely-populated Jewish areas to what the community now considers "one of the lost territories of the Republic".

"The Jewish community is expected to disappear from here," Benhamou says.

In nearby Raincy, Rabbi Moshe Lewin shares Benhamou's pessimism, fearing he could be one of the last Jewish leaders in Seine-Saint-Denis.

"What upsets me is that in some areas of France, Jews can no longer live peacefully, and that just five minutes from my home, some are forced to hide their kippas (skullcaps) or their Star of David," he admits.

Even areas with a strong Jewish population, such as Sarcelles to the north, still have major problems.

Francois Pupponi, the Socialist mayor of Sarcelles, says many Jewish residents come to him for help with stories of being assaulted or having swastikas daubed on walls outside their homes.

Some have been caught in "extremely violent situations" that in some cases required families to be "urgently rehoused", says Pupponi.

He become aware of "a phenomenon of internal migration" about five or six years ago, which he says "is getting worse".

rest: http://www.thelocal.fr/20160531/french-jews-flee-paris-suburbs-over-rising-anti-semitism

Belgium: Jewish Elementary School Student 'Gassed' by Classmates in Shower
These were just boys playing "games."  ???

Anti--Semitism is alive and well.

A 12-year old Jewish boy has endured two years of abuse at his elementary school in Brussels, and school administrators have done nothing about it -- because, you know, the incidents were only anti-Semitic, not "Islamophobic."

School officials apparently didn't even care that the boy was "gassed" with spray deodorant by classmates while in the school showers. The Times of Israel reports:

The Jewish student was subjected to anti-Semitic abuse over the past two years at his elementary school in the Brussels suburb of Braine-le-Chateau, according to a statement Friday by the Belgian League Against Anti-Semitism. All the involved students are now 12 years old.

The mother of the alleged victim filed a police complaint last week over the bullying, which she said her son detailed to her. Francis Brancart, an education board official, confirmed Thursday that his office was looking into the matter, which he said may require the opening of an independent inquiry, the news agency Belga reported. He said he could not confirm the veracity of the complaints.

The alleged incident in the showers happened early last year. The three students pressed the deodorant canisters’ nozzles to the boy’s body, his mother said, causing burns and skin irritations on his back. She said it was one of dozens of incidents in which her son was subjected to violence, anti-Semitic jokes and intimidation.

The student complained to faculty but his mother said the teacher in charge ignored the complaints, even after her son asked for and got permission to stay indoors during recess to avoid harassment.

“She downplayed the situation each time we complained,” the mother, who was not named in LBCA and Belga’s reporting, told LBCA of the teacher. “My son is graduating from elementary school and will leave the school, but I am taking these actions so that teachers and the school administration realize they cannot disregard this bullying.”

The principal told Belga she was surprised by the allegations, adding the student in question did not appear to be unhappy, his behavior had not changed over the past two years and he had maintained excellent scholastic performance.

The principal brushed off the incidents, saying she was unaware of their anti-Semitic nature (because gassing people in showers happens all the time to folks everywhere) and that the three students involved were reprimanded for taking part in what they claim was all just fun and games. The Times continues:

LBCA president Joel Rubinfeld told Belga he interviewed other students who confirmed the anti-Semitic nature of the “gassing” incident and the recurrence of jokes and taunts referencing the Holocaust in the student’s bullying by the three other classmates.

The case reported last week is one of several recent anti-Semitic incidents in Belgium, including the bullying of a high school student who was forced to change schools amid alleged inaction by the institution where the harassment occurred. Last year, Belgian media reported on the online shaming by classmates of a pro-Israel high school student who also left the public education system for a Jewish school.

The report does not identify the background of the students accused of harassment, but Rubinfeld did note that Belgian schools are fast turning into"Jew-free" zones. But of course there couldn't be any correlation between the Islamization of Belgium and the rise in anti-Semitism in the country, could there?

http://www.truthrevolt.org/news/belgium-jewish-elementary-school-student-gassed-classmates-shower

British lawmaker accuses Israel of causing rise in jihadism

Tonge: The treatment of the Palestinians by Israel is a major cause of the rise of extreme Islamism and Daesh.

A British lawmaker who said Israel would eventually disappear accused the Jewish state of being a major cause in the rise of jihadism worldwide.

Following the statement Thursday by Jenny Tonge, a House of Lords member from the Liberal Democrat party, the Board of Deputies of British Jews called on the party’s head to fire her.

Tonge said “the treatment of the Palestinians by Israel is a major cause of the rise of extreme Islamism and Daesh,” using the Arab-language acronym of the Islamic State terrorist organization. She said Israel was provoking a generation of violent extremists who would have “a justified grudge” against Israel and Britain.

Board of Deputies Vice President Marie van der Zyl in a statement said it was “another outrageous speech” by Tonge on the Middle East.

“It is time for Liberal Democrat Leader Tim Farron to expel her once and for all from the party,” the statement said.

Tonge resigned in 2012 from the position of party whip, a task equivalent in the United States to speaker, after she spoke about Israel’s demise at an event promoting the boycott of the Jewish state.


“Beware Israel. Israel is not going to be there forever in its present form,” she said at the time. “One day, the United States of America will get sick of giving 70 billion pounds [approximately $92 billion] a year to Israel to support what I call America’s aircraft carrier in the Middle East – that is Israel. One day, the American people are going to say to the Israel lobby in the USA: enough is enough. Israel will lose support and then they will reap what they have sown.”

The United States in reality gives Israel $3 billion annually in defense assistance.

http://www.jpost.com/International/British-lawmaker-accuses-Israel-of-causing-rise-in-jihadism-462105

Anti-Semitic incidents rise in Britain: What can be done?
Reported incidents that included verbal abuse and graffiti rose by 11 percent.

While anti-Muslim sentiment has garnered many headlines in Europe and the United States in recent months, a recent release shows that the number of anti-Semitic incidents reported in Britain rose by 11 percent in 2016, continuing a trend of increased reports since 2013.

“The long term trend shows that the number of antisemitic incidents has remained at a relatively high level since the summer of 2014 when the UK saw a large spike in antisemitic incidents in relation to the conflict in Israel and Gaza that year,” according to a report published by the Community Security Trust (CST), a British charity that protects Jews from antisemitism and related threats.

“More must be done by the British leaders to protect their Jewish communities,” Moshe Kantor, president of the European Jewish Congress, said, according to The Guardian.

rest: http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Global-News/2016/0804/Anti-Semitic-incidents-rise-in-Britain-What-can-be-done

Celtic fans raise over £136,000 for 'Palestine' after Israel match debacle

Celtic fans have so far raised over £136,000 in two days for Palestinian charities after the club received a disciplinary charge from the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA). Last week, fans of Scotland’s Celtic soccer team staged a protest, organized by Green Brigade fans, against Israel when their team faced off with Hapoel Beersheba in the Champions League.

http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Celtic-fans-raise-over-136000-for-Palestine-after-UEFA-disciplinary-charge-465910


Russian 'documentary' claims Jews behind Titanic, Chernobyl and 9/11

A documentary recently aired on a Russian television station with a potential reach of 100 million viewers laid blame for some of history's greatest calamities at the feet of the Jews. According to The Jewish Chronicle, the short film, which aired on Russia's REN TV, claimed that Jews were behind the sinking of the Titanic, the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl and the September 11 terror attacks.   

http://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/Russian-documentary-claims-Jews-behind-Titanic-Chernobyl-and-911-465907

‘70% of European Jews won’t go to shul on High Holy Days despite heightened security’

A poll released on Tuesday claiming that 70% of European Jews won’t go to synagogue on Rosh Hashana or Yom Kippur due to security concerns, has been met with skepticism by prominent Jewish leaders.

The online survey, conducted last week by the European Jewish Association and the Rabbinical Center of Europe had 78 respondents, who the EJA says are a representative sample of 700 capital cities and peripheries throughout Europe – spanning from Britain to Ukraine.

The pollsters explained that while the number of respondents is far lower than the number of communities represented, each respondent speaks for multiple communities, as within certain cities and areas, many communities have similar characteristics.

The margin of error was ±4.9%.

Participants were asked if there was an increase or decrease in the number of registered individuals in their Jewish communities in comparison with last year; whether there was an increase or decrease in the number of Jews expected to attend synagogue on the High Holy Days in comparison with last year; how concerned they and their community members are by the increase in antisemitism in their countries; and whether there was heightened security at Jewish institutes in their community in light of the increase in terrorist attacks in Europe.

Approximately half of Jewish communities across the continent reported a decline in the number of active members, while only 11% reported a rise in members and 39% of the communities reported no change.

The poll also found that 80% of respondents are concerned about a rise in antisemitism in their countries.



Meanwhile 75% of the communities reported increased security measures taken by their respective governments.

Rabbi Menachem Margolin, general director of both the European Jewish Association and the Rabbinical Center of Europe, said that this was in light of an increase in antisemitism since last year’s High Holy Days, and that the vast majority of community leaders reported increased security and policing measures around Jewish schools, synagogues and other affiliated institutions.

This poll is conducted annually, and having analyzed the results and compared them with previous years, the groups deducted that the drop in synagogue attendance is a direct result of increased antisemitism. Margolin told The Jerusalem Post that while other factors do come into play, such as secularization, a comparison with previous years shows that security concerns are the main factor.

“The challenge for most of the Jewish communities has doubled in recent months,” said Margolin.

He cited an increase in attacks on Jewish individuals, institutions and communities, which he partly blamed on the influx of refugees to Europe. He also pointed to a growing influence of the far Right across the continent. “Currently the focus of the extreme Right and their activity is focused on Islamophobia, but testimonies of rabbis and community leaders show a great deal of concern about growing nationalism and xenophobia, also against the Jews of Europe,” he warned.

Margolin called for the European Union and governments across the continent to increase educational efforts in the fight against antisemitism. “Counter- terrorism is of course an important measure to save lives – but not enough to solve the problem from the root. As long as there will not be an educational effort focused on the elimination of antisemitism, the problem will continue,” he said.

The groups responsible for the poll said respondents included rabbis as well as Jewish community leaders, both religious and secular. The Board of Deputies of British Jews, however, described the organizations as “a group of Chabad rabbis with no mandate whatsoever to speak for European Jews.”

Indeed, Jewish leaders in Britain and Ukraine, two countries mentioned in the press release on the poll results, responded to the findings with absolute skepticism.

Pointing to the number of people interviewed for the poll, Board of Deputies President Jonathan Arkush opined that the sample was far too small to be reliable.

“The poll does not represent reality for the UK and I suspect greatly overstates the position elsewhere in Europe,” Arkush told the Post, noting that he had consulted with the Community Security Trust which is of the same opinion. “Of course not every Jewish individual attends synagogue on the High Holy Days, but the reasons are generally nothing to do with fears about security.”

Ukrainian Chief Rabbi Yaakov Bleich echoed Arkush’s sentiment that the poll was populist and sensationalist. “I’m not sure which Jews they [EJA and RCE] associate with,” he said, before disagreeing with the poll’s findings that fewer Jews are going to synagogue. In fact, he told the Post that while the number of Jews living in Ukraine has drastically reduced in the 26 years he has lived there, the number of Jews going to synagogue has increased. “I think Jewish identity is becoming stronger and there are more practicing Jews.”

Polish Chief Rabbi Michael Schudrich too asserted that in his country the trend is the reverse of what the poll states. “The security concerns have not touched Poland, radical Islamic terrorism has not touched Poland; therefore I don’t think it will have any impact.”

Meanwhile, Robert Ejnes, the director of the Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions (CRIF), said the figures released in the poll have been the same for a long time in France.

“I don’t think it’s any different to previous years,” Ejnes said regarding the statistic that 70% won’t go to synagogue on the High Holy Days. The estimate in France for many years has been that 25%-30% of Jews attend services on those days. He noted that polls of this kind are difficult to conduct in France since ethnic statistics are forbidden there.

He also expressed disbelief that synagogue attendance is connected to security concerns, and stated that in his experience as the president of one of the largest congregations in the Paris area, more people are showing up to shul.

http://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/70-percent-of-European-Jews-wont-go-to-shul-on-High-Holy-Days-despite-heightened-security-468210

Antisemitism and radical Islam could drive Jews from Europe, rabbi warns

The situation of Jews in Europe today is like a person standing on train tracks while two trains approach on a collision path, Pinchas Goldschmidt, Chief Rabbi of Moscow, told European Parliament. Goldschmidt explained that "one train is radical Islam and Islamic terrorism... the other train is the antisemitism of old Europe, the extreme right."   

http://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/Antisemitism-and-radical-Islam-could-drive-Jews-from-Europe-rabbi-warns-469290

French Jews: The first victims in a France where everyone is now in the crosshairs

The Jewish New Year is supposed to be a time of joy: apples and honey, family and faith. But in France — home to Europe’s largest Jewish community — the High Holidays are also a time of metal detectors and full-body pat-downs, ID checks and security interviews on the streets outside synagogues.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/french-jews-the-first-victims-in-a-france-where-everyone-is-now-in-the-crosshairs/2016/10/09/9ca2e608-ea02-4ef7-8929-a26d5cdc3a93_story.html

British Baroness Suspended for Anti-Semitism

Jenny Tonge has quit Britain's Liberal Democrat party after it suspended her membership in the party over charges of anti-Semitism.
 
Baroness Tonge hosted a meeting in the House of Lords this week at which a speaker compared Israel to the Islamic State and blamed Jews for the Holocaust.
 
The meeting was live-streamed on the Facebook page of a Palestinian group that organized the event.
 
The Israeli embassy in London said the meeting was a "shameful event which gave voice to racist tropes against Jews and Israelis alike."
 
Tonge's affiliation with the Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords ended in 2012 after she attended an Israeli Apartheid Week talk at Middlesex University and said: "Beware Israel. Israel is not going to be there forever in its present form."
 
In 2004, Tonge said she would consider becoming a suicide bomber if she were a Palestinian.  She said Palestinians became suicide bombers as an "act of desperation."
 
Tonge recently sent a letter to the Guardian newspaper that blamed the rise in anti-Semitism on Israel's treatment of Palestinians.

http://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/world/2016/october/british-baroness-suspended-for-anti-semitism

40,000 Jews Have Fled France In 10 Years Amid Rising Anti-Semitism Jacob Bojesson

Around 5,000 French Jews emigrated from the country in 2016 after a series of attacks on the community. A total of 40,000 Jews have left the country since 2006, according to figures released Monday. A majority of Jews move to Israel, but at least 10 percent return to their home country at a later point.

http://dailycaller.com/2017/01/10/40000-jews-have-fled-france-in-10-years-amid-rising-anti-semitism/

France says Trump's Jerusalem embassy proposal a provocation

France's foreign minister said...to move the American embassy to Jerusalem would be a provocation with serious consequences. "Of course (it's a provocation). I think he would not be able to do it," Jean-Marc Ayrault told France 3 television... "It would have extremely serious consequences and it's not the first time that it's on the agenda of a US president, but none have let themselves make that decision.   

http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Trumps-Jerusalem-embassy-proposal-a-provocation-says-French-FM-478482

Jews Make Exodus from France Amid Rising Anti-Semitism
“We do not feel welcome.”

Two years ago, NRG correspondent Zvika Klein took a hidden camera, and a bodyguard, to the streets of Paris and silently walked for 10 hours wearing a tzitzit and a kippa to record reactions from passersby. Walking in Paris as a Jew proved to be an unwelcoming experience as every street corner brought new derogatory comments from the local Arabs.

Klein was yelled at, intimidated, and spat upon. Adults shouted, "Viva Palestine," and "I'm joking, the dog will not eat you." A teenage girl said, "Look at that – it's the first time I've ever seen such a thing." A child asked his mother, "What is he doing here Mommy? Doesn’t he know he will be killed?"

Such is life for a Jew in France these days, and it’s only getting worse.

A new report out of Paris tells of an “internal exodus” that continued in 2017 as French Jews feel unwelcome and forced from their homes “by levels of anti-Semitism not seen since the end of the Second World War,” Breitbart notes.

French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe has said:

“This ‘internal exodus’ is difficult to quantify, but it is clear that many synagogues of Seine-Saint-Denis have closed, for lack of people. In Pierrefitte, the rabbi has recorded a 50 percent decline in the congregations since his arrival thirteen years ago. A similar story is told in (nearby) Bondy, where attendance on Yom Kippur (the holiest day of the Jewish calendar) has fallen from about 800 to 400 in the last decade.”

Every rabbi says the same thing: “There are places where we do not feel welcome.”

“It’s hard to explain, it’s provocations, it’s looks,” they say of the “deteriorating climate.”

It’s said that any attire or symbols that identify people as Jewish are often hidden from public view to avoid ridicule or even attacks. However, that’s not a solution that works every time.

Breitbart reports on the exodus by the numbers:

More than 5,000 departures were recorded in 2016 on top of the record 7,900 who left in 2015 and 7,231 in 2014. In total, 40,000 French Jews have emigrated since 2006, according to figures cited by AFP.

This is Europe’s multicultural experiment. Great job.

http://www.truthrevolt.org/news/jews-make-exodus-france-amid-rising-anti-semitism

EU Will Not Recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s Capital

 President Trump and his administration have been taking steps to show their support for Israel, but the European Union is not following suit.

As ChristianHeadlines.com previously reported, President Trump announced that the U.S. would recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and that the U.S. was working toward moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

EU leaders do not support Trump’s stance and action on Israel and rejected his announcement to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, according to The Times of Israel.

“EU leaders reiterate firm commitment to the two-state solution and, in this context, the EU position on Jerusalem remains unchanged,” EU President Donald Tusk tweeted after EU leaders from 28 countries discussed the matter at a summit in Brussels.

EU foreign policy leader Federica Mogherini has also warned that Trump’s decision could take Arab-Israeli tensions “backwards to even darker times.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem and move the U.S. Embassy. “I believe that all or most of the European countries will move their embassies to Jerusalem, recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, and engage robustly with us for security, prosperity and peace,” he said.

But Mogherini said that Netanyahu should “keep his expectations for others.”

https://www.christianheadlines.com/blog/eu-will-not-recognize-jerusalem-as-israel-s-capital.html

Ireland Advances Bill Making it Criminal to Buy Israeli Goods
The Irish parliament gave initial approval to a bill that would boycott goods produced by Israeli companies. Israel is enraged.

https://www.jewsnews.co.il/2018/02/02/ireland-advances-bill-making-it-criminal-to-buy-israeli-goods.html

‘Jews murdered for being Jews’ in France

As a child, Mireille Knoll barely escaped the sweeping 1942 Nazi-inspired wartime roundup of 13,000 Jews in Paris, most of whom were sent to the notorious Auschwitz death camp.

But just over two weeks ago, on Friday, March 23, a week before Passover, at the age of 85, Mrs. Knoll was raped, tortured and murdered in her apartment in Trèbes, a small town in Southwestern France, by a young Muslim man she had known since he was 7 years old who shouted “Allahu akbar” during his anti-Jewish bloodlust rampage.

The disabled grandmother was stabbed 11 times and her body was burned, according to law enforcement, by two men, one of whom, Yacine Mihoub, the primary suspect, was previously jailed for six months for sexually assaulting the daughter of a woman who helped look after the elderly Mrs. Knoll.

The heinous anti-Semitic crime has blown the lid off what has become a pattern of such attacks in France in the last five years in which some 250 murders have been committed by Muslims, according to Guy Millière, a professor at the University of Paris and author of 27 books on France and Europe.

“Today, France is the only country in the Western world where Jews are murdered simply for being Jews,” writes Millière. “French Jews live in constant insecurity. The men who murder them evidently do not hesitate to break into homes and attack elderly women; they seem to know they can threaten their future victims without fear of arrest. More often than not, the police do not even record the complaints of Jews who go to the police station, but simply note in the daybook that a Jew claiming threats came and went.”

rest: http://www.wnd.com/2018/04/jews-murdered-for-being-jews-in-france/

Exclusive: PayPal closes French BDS media account

The giant US online payment service PayPal shut down the account of a major French boycott,sanctions, divestment (BDS) organization targeting Israel on Thursday, The Jerusalem Post has learned. PayPal’s services to Agence Media Palestine–the Paris-based BDS organization–now reads on the group’s website: “This recipient is currently unable to receive money.”

https://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/Exclusive-PayPal-closes-French-BDS-media-account-562403

EU warns nation state bill could harm Israeli democracy

“The respect for human rights and fundamental principles are a key part of the EU-Israel partnership."

Israel’s nation state bill harms the country’s democracy, the European Union’s Ambassador to Israel Emanuele Giaufret warned on Friday.

Giaufret spoke out after Channel 2 reported Thursday evening that he had urged parliamentarians not to support the Knesset bill, which codifies the idea that Israel is the nation state of the Jewish people.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu then summoned Giaufret to the Foreign Ministry, which reprimanded him on Friday. No further action was taken.

Giaufret issued a general response to the media on the matter in which he said that all diplomats discuss a wide range of issues with their host countries, including with those country's politicians.

“The Jewish State bill did come up occasionally as part of these regular discussions” with Israeli parliamentarians, he said.

“How Israel chooses to define itself is an internal issue for Israel to decide, and we respect the internal debate which is ongoing,” Giaufret said.

“We value Israel’s commitment to the shared values of democracy and human rights, which has characterized our long-standing and fruitful relations. We in the EU would not want to see these values being put in question or even threatened. Democracy and equality, including equal rights for minorities, are key values that define our societies,” Giaufret said.

“The respect for human rights and fundamental principles are a key part of the EU-Israel partnership,” Giaufret said.

“We never used derogatory language in general and certainly not to define draft bills under discussion in the Knesset,” he added.

The EU has increasingly been at odds with Israel over its activities in the West Bank and Gaza, particularly its continued settlement building and its demolition of illegal Palestinian structures in Area C.

The EU has also urged Israel not to demolish the Palestinian Beduin village of Khan al-Ahmar, located on the edge of the Kfar Adumim settlement, a short distance away from Jerusalem.

https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Politics-And-Diplomacy/EU-warns-nation-state-bill-could-harm-Israeli-democracy-562450

PLO to convene over Israeli legislation that Judaizes Palestinian lands

The Palestinian Liberation Organization's (PLO) Executive Committee will meet at the beginning of August to confront what many Palestinians see as a series of US-supported Israeli legislation that weakens the two-state solution and “Judaizes” Palestinian lands.

“We (PLO members) are holding an urgent meeting of our Central Committee to discuss ways to confront the latest Israeli violations,” Rawhi Fatouh, a member of the PLO Central Committee, told The Media Line.

“What is required now is to end Palestinian division and forge a united national spirit in defeating (US President Donald) Trump’s ‘deal of the century.’”

Fatouh added that the peace process does not exist anymore since the American administration recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in December 2017. “The American administration ended its mediator role and the whole peace process by taking that step,” he said.

Fatouh then explained that Israeli attempts to “Judaize” Palestinian lands, especially those around Jerusalem, aim to divide the West Bank into two parts.
Last week, dozens of Palestinian, Israeli, and international activists tried to block Israeli bulldozers and other heavy equipment from dismantling Khan al-Ahmar, a Bedouin village east of Jerusalem. Israel says that houses in the village were constructed without the relevant building permits and pose a danger to village residents because of their proximity to a highway.

But activists contend that Bedouin villagers have lived at the site since the 1950s after the state evicted them from their Negev homes. The villagers had no alternative but to build without Israeli construction permits, which Palestinians say are difficult to obtain.

Khan al-Ahmar is located in Area C of the West Bank, which includes both privately-owned Palestinian land and areas under Israeli administrative and security control based on the 1993 Oslo Accords. While the US and the international community have long pressured Israel not to build in Area C, many Palestinians feel that the Trump administration has eased up on this policy. This means, Fatouh contended, that Israel does not stand by either a two-state or a one-state solution. “That is crystal clear based on Israeli actions on the ground. Israel wants to expel Palestinians from their lands and Judaize these areas while continuing the occupation,” he asserted.

In response, he added, “solidarity and international support are the only two options Palestinians have.”

Earlier this month, Israel passed legislation that deducts terrorists' salaries from tax funds Israel collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority.
Nabil Abu Rudaineh, a spokesman for the PA, slammed the law, saying it amounted to a “declaration of war against the Palestinian people, their fighters, prisoners, and martyrs.” Palestinians are also incensed about a bill in the Knesset that would allow Jewish Israelis to purchase land in the West Bank, land that Palestinians deem vital for a future state. The bill would allow any non-Arab or foreign citizen to purchase land in Area C. Saeb Erekat, the head of the PLO Executive Committee, told The Media Line that Israel and the US are implementing Trump’s “deal of the century” on the ground. The aim, he contended, is to destroy the two-state solution and replace it with a one-state/two systems arrangement, “which is apartheid.”

“This Israeli-American project will fail as it won’t lead to any viable solution; it will only cause more chaos and tension,” Erekat said.  Erekat blamed Israel for taking advantage of Palestinian division by offering the Gaza Strip “humanitarian” projects designed to drive a wedge between the Palestinian leadership in the enclave and the West Bank. “We started by cutting off all communication with the current American administration, as it is no longer part of the peace process,” Erekat said, adding that the Palestinian leadership is now concerned primarily with eliciting support from the international community. “We approached the UN Security Council, the International Criminal Court, the UN Human Rights Council and the UN General Assembly, as well as different international organizations for support,” he said.

https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5309577,00.html

Anti-Semitic Vandalism Surges Across Eastern France

Vandals defaced a former synagogue in eastern France with swastikas in the latest of a series of anti-Semitic desecrations plaguing the region. Staff at the synagogue-turned-sports-facility in the town of Mommenheim discovered the swastikas on the building’s door and facade, which still bears Hebrew lettering, Monday, according to The Associated Press. The anti-Semitic incident came hot on the heels of the Saturday vandalism of a monument honoring a synagogue ransacked and burned by Hitler Youth in Strasbourg. The culprits knocked the memorial stone off of its base and left it lying on the ground.

https://dailycaller.com/2019/03/04/anti-semitic-vandalism-france/

EU dictates to Jewish community: Here's how you must ritually slaughter your meat
David Sidman
https://www.israel365news.com/193952/eu-dictates-to-jewish-community-heres-how-you-must-ritually-slaughter-your-meat/

Jewish community leaders in Europe say the EU is not only outlawing certain methods of kosher and halal slaughter but is also instructing Jews and Muslims as to how to practice their own religions reports JTA.

This was the result of a recent ruling by the European Union’s highest court. It upholds bans in Belgium on manufacturing both kosher and halal meat, outlawing a practice in which livestock is slaughtered without initially being electrically stunned unconscious.

Both Jewish and Muslim lay leaders bypass stunning under similar religious laws that mandate animals to be conscious when they are slaughtered for consumption. Both the court and animal rights activists ruled that the practice is cruel.

However, the December 17 decision by the Court of the European Union takes it a step further as the 11,000-word document recommends that Jews and Muslims should and could find a way to let animals be electrically stunned.

This section of the ruling is already reigniting internal communal debates within both Jewish and Muslim communities amid allegations that the court is weakening Europe’s separation of church and state.

“That part of it is astonishing,” said Shimon Cohen, campaign director for Shechita UK, a London-based organization that lobbies against attempts to ban shechita, or kosher slaughter. A secular court does not have “the authority to tell people if they can practice elements of their faith. I may disagree with some of the restrictions, but not with the mandate. But a secular court has no right to tell me how to practice. That’s gross overreaching.”

Pinchas Goldschmidt, the president of the European Conference of Rabbis, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that for the court “to seek to define shechita is absurd.”

Goldschmidt rejected the court’s ruling that electric stunning is compatible with Judaism. Meat from animals that had were stunned electrically or otherwise, prior to slaughter can’t be considered kosher, he said.

The bans in Belgium are part of a wider conflict across Europe between animal ‘rights’ activists against Jewish and Muslim community representatives over the kosher and halal slaughter techniques.

The ruling denied a petition filed by Jewish and Muslim groups in Belgium, implies that because “electronarcosis” isn’t lethal, religious authorities should be able to implement it within their religious rituals.

Additionally, the ruling stated that since the ban is restricted to parts of Belgium, Muslims and Jews can still obtain a supply of kosher and halal meat, minimizing the encroachment on their freedom of worship.

Cohen rejects these arguments. The science on what causes suffering to an animal be it an electric shock or a sharp, swift knife-cut — is a long way from being settled, Cohen argued, and according to religious interpretations that are beyond the court’s jurisdiction. Regarding the supply argument, he added that kosher meat shortages are already common in Europe today.

Making matters worse, the parliamentary debate did not involve any representatives of the Jewish community but did feature a Muslim veterinarian.

In addition to the court exceeding its purview, Cohen said that the court “lumped Muslim and Jewish customs together.” The two religions have distinct methods for ritual slaughter

“The court’s ruling makes as much sense as moving Shabbat to Sunday because Christians are fine with it,” Cohen said.