Here’s an interesting tidbit from Stratfor: “Iran will build a 435 mile-long cement wall topped with barbwire along 100 percent of the border between Iran and Afghanistan to prevent the entry of narcotics from Afghanistan, Farsi News Agency reported July 30. The proposed wall is scheduled to be completed by March 2010.”
In Shi’a Muslim tradition, today marks the arbayeen - the fortieth day - since the murder of Neda Agha Soltan in protests against Tehran’s criminal Islamist regime. Rather poignantly, in the Jewish calendar today also marks Tisha Be Av, a day of mourning and fasting for the tragedies that have befallen the Jewish people through history.
Rest in peace, Neda. We won’t forget you.
Jay Adler directs me to this correspondence of his with Andrew Sullivan. Inter alia, Adler writes: “The problem in this is that Max Blumenthal and those particular ‘young left-wing Jewish political writers who criticise right-wing Israeli policies’ are not, simply, ‘writers who criticise right-wing Israeli policies.’ Blumenthal and Mondoweiss are both anti-Zionist. They are opposed to the existence of the Jewish state and are expressly working to bring about its demise.”
Continue reading ‘Andrew Sullivan Forecasts Israel’s Demise’
This is a guest post by ganselmi.
Despite the brutal clampdown on their post-election uprising, Iranians of all walks of life are continuing to insist on the sovereignty of the ballot and the rule of law. By mobilizing its mighty technologies of repression, the putschist regime has successfully reasserted control of Iran’s streets and campuses - for now. But the Islamic Republic has completely lost what little legitimacy it had before June 12th. The rest of the world, too, has been forced to see the IRI for exactly what it is: a permanent pariah in the international community, a rogue state willing to murder its own citizens in cold blood.
Ezequiel Adamovsky, Maristella Svampa and Horacio Tarcus are three prominent Argentine intellectuals and they have a joint op-ed piece about the investigation into the AMIA massacre in today’s Pagina/12. They call into question the version of the attack put forward by State Attorney Albert Nisman and criticize the failure to effectively prosecute Argentines involved in the attack. Official Jewish organizations are also attacked for what the authors see as their unconditional support for the government’s approach to the investigation.
This is a guest post by Dave Rich of the Community Security Trust in the UK.
CST has long been known for recording and analysing antisemitic hate crimes: the physical assaults, desecrations, racist abuse and hate mail that make up a quantifiable measure of antisemitism. But just as, in recent years, it has become increasingly apparent that antisemitism is not restricted to the activities of street thugs and bar room racists, so it has become necessary to chart that other sort of antisemitism: the ideas, images and language that occasionally pollutes public discourse. Last year, CST published its first Antisemitic Discourse Report, which attempted to identify, catalogue and analyse examples of this kind of antisemitism from 2007. Now CST has published its second such report, covering 2008.
As Terry Glavin reports, on the surface these words don’t sit well with the mission statement of an organization that wants to prepare young Muslims to participate in a pluralistic society. But perhaps it’s inevitable when you bring Azzam “Kaboom” Tamimi into the mix. “Lurid theology unavoidably bleeds into toxic ideology, and nobody should be surprised that Tamimi has found a home for himself with the Al-Fauz institute,” writes Terry.
This is a guest post by Karl Pfeifer, a veteran anti-fascist and journalist based in Vienna.
In Hungary, both Holocaust denial and incitement against Jews, Roma, the gay community and the left are permissible. But Tibor Bakács, a journalist, has been fined by a Hungarian court for describing a gang of racist, antisemitic bikers as “fascists.”
By their own mouths do they most damn themselves. As Petra Marquardt Bigman notes, “What is sure is that when it comes to antisemitism, White thinks that ‘reason’ number one is, unsurprisingly, ‘the state of Israel, its ideology of racial supremacy and its subsequent crimes committed against the Palestinians. It is because Zionists have always sought to equate their colonial project with Judaism that some misguidedly respond to what they see on their televisions with attacks on Jews or Jewish property.’”
Was Israel’s “ideology of racial supremacy” the reason for the horrific kidnapping, torture and murder of the young French Jew Ilan Halimi? Was it the reason for the 1994 bombing of AMIA in Buenos Aires, which killed 85 and wounded hundreds more? Only those possessed of a supreme moral idiocy - whether a well-known film director like Ken Loach or a minor hack like Ben White - would say yes. It’s a type of mindset which by rights should have gone the same way as the Soviet Union, but remains all too visible today.
1.
Fifteen years ago today a truck bomb destroyed the headquarters of the AMIA Jewish community organization in Buenos Aires. 85 people were killed and hundreds injured.
Continue reading ‘AMIA: 15 Years of State-sponsored Cover-ups and Impunity’
Remember this ghastly business which brought shame on the Edinburgh International Film Festival? Well, the equivalent festival in Melbourne, Australia won’t be intimidated by Ken “Antisemitism is Understandable” Loach. Responding to a demand from Loach that the festival refuse Israeli funding, festival director Richard Moore said: “I wouldn’t do it. The festival wouldn’t. It’s like submitting to blackmail.” Well said.
Read the story here.
This is a guest post by James Mendelsohn, who teaches Law at the University of Huddersfield in the UK.
Just to recap: Jonathan Hoffman wrote a review of Ben White’s book Israeli Apartheid: A Beginner’s Guide here. Ben White responded here. Hoffman’s rejoinder to White’s response is available here. (Strangely, Jews for Justice for Palestinians seem to have overlooked Hoffman’s rejoinder, but that’s another story.)
Continue reading ‘More White Lies About Israeli “Apartheid”’
“One thing is certain: In a six-hour telethon loaded with Israel bashing, the Greek public was deceived that money contributed would go to rebuild a Christian hospital destroyed by the army of the Jewish state.”
Jean Cohen in Athens with an extraordinary story - a scam which took advantage of the fact that so many people really are prepared to believe the worst about Israel.
Hat-Tip: Eddie.
Ben Cohen writes: This is a guest post by Jonathan Hoffman. Keen-eyed readers will spot that he links to Ben White’s blog; as a guest writer here, that’s his prerogative. However, the comments policy outlined in my brief post of yesterday, Chutzpah, still stands. Meanwhile, readers wading through accusations of censorship on this blog are referred to this post on Seismic Shock, which elegantly summarizes the situation.
On Z Word last week, I reviewed a new book by Ben White, ‘Israeli Apartheid: A Beginner’s Guide’.
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