A sign in a bicycle shop in Reykjavik, Iceland, announcing that Jews are not welcome. And no doubt the Jews are also to blame for the collapse of the country’s financial system. Read more on Philosemitism.
Archive for January, 2009
A synagogue in Caracas, the Venezuelan capital, was attacked and vandalized last night. The assailants sprayed slogans like “Death to the Jews”and “Jews Get Out”on the walls. The thugs also destroyed Torah scrolls and prayer books.
Over at Open Democracy, Hugo Slim has an interesting piece about the role of NGOs in the Israel-Palestine conflict.
It’s been a tough week for María José Lubertino. She’s the head of INADI, the Argentine state organization dedicated to the protection and promotion of equal rights for all citizens. During a radio interview she took it into her head to say that by attacking Hamas in Gaza, Israel had “violated international law” and that this had “backfired on it,” the latter point a reference to the protests outside the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires. These included the usual comparisons - made from the platform and not only from the body of demonstrators - between Israel and Nazi Germany, as well as the customary expressions of support for Hamas.
Reza Aslan, a California-based academic, has been speaking to Jimmy Carter about the Middle East. It is the kind of interview which all politicians dream about. Aslan bolsters rather than challenges Carter, leading him to his favorite topics and themes with dutifully worded questions. Two of Carter’s answers actually commence with the words, “That’s exactly right.”
Continue reading ‘What Carter Can Learn from the Erdogan Outburst’
Lluis Bassets a journalist at El País. Not just any journalist either, he’s the newspaper’s associate editor and is in charge of its op-ed section. Naturally, he also has own blog on the paper’s website. There you can read stuff like this.
The American Jewish Committee, which sponsors Z Word, has issued the following statement.
It’s been a bizarre and disturbing day. I have nothing to add to David T’s take on the Prime Minister who quoted an obscure raving antisemite in the hallowed surroundings of Davos. But if we’re shopping for quotes, examine this one, from the South African Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.
This is the final of three guest posts by Henry McDonald, who has covered Irish politics for the Observer and Guardian newspapers, examining the flaws in the frequently-drawn comparison between the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and Islamist terror groups like Hamas. The posts are drawn from the final chapter of Henry’s recent book, Gunsmoke and Mirrors - How Sinn Fein Dressed up Defeat as Victory, available here. You can now read the entire piece or download a handy PDF version over on the main Z Word site.
The narrative of the Irish peace process suggests a leadership driven by entirely practical concerns, willing when necessary to dump old ideological certainties in the pursuit of limited goals. Dissidents jibe that Sinn Fein’s entry into and embrace of the parliament at Stormont would be akin in the Middle East to Hamas entering the Knesset. In that at least the dissidents have a point.
Continue reading ‘The Limits of the Northern Ireland Analogy (3)’
Aníbal Fernández is Argentina’s Minister for Justice, Security and Human Rights and he believes that there has been “… no outbreak of antisemitism in Argentina”, though he’s willing to admit that there have been “…unfortunate demonstrations directed at the Jewish community.”
Continue reading ‘No Antisemitic Upsurge in Argentina says Minister’
This is a guest post by Karl Pfeifer, a veteran anti-fascist and journalist based in Vienna.
Reading the news about the reintegration of a notorious Holocaust denier into the Catholic Church, as well as the open letter of Cardinal Christoph Schönborn to the Chief Rabbi of Austria and the Jewish community on the occasion of Holocaust Memorial Day, reminded me of my boyhood experiences at the elementary school in Baden bei Wien during the 1930s.
“The control of America, just like the control of most Western countries, is in the hands of Jewish money and if Jewish money controls their country then you cannot expect anything else.” These words were spoken by South Africa’s Deputy Foreign Minister, Fatima Hajaig, at a Palestinian solidarity rally organized by the Cosatu trade union federation in the town of Lenasia on January 14th.
Continue reading ‘South African Deputy Foreign Minister: “Jewish Money Controls America”’
This is a guest post by Michelle Sieff of the American Jewish Committee.
Today, buried in the New York Times, Somini Sengupta reports that in Sri Lanka UN workers and their families came under heavy shelling during recent fighting between government troops and rebel Tamil Tigers. Nine civilians died and more than twenty were wounded. She describes the UN response:
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad marked Holocaust Memorial Day by addressing a conference entitled: “Holocaust: The West’s Sacred Lie.”
In the end, Miguel D’Escoto Brockmann, the President of the UN General Assembly, decided not to attend the Holocaust commemoration ceremonies at UN Headquarters here in New York. One can speculate endlessly as to why D’Escoto - whose choice of metaphor to describe Israel’s policies towards the Palestinians is “crucifixion” - bowed out. Perhaps it was because he didn’t want to be in a room where he wasn’t welcome; perhaps something inside him dreaded the prospect of looking actual Holocaust survivors in the eye just a few months after he embraced the world’s most well-known exponent of Holocaust denial; perhaps (let us not forget those who will inevitably say this) he was “leaned on” or “pressured” or “prevented” by you-know-who.
