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I just received an email informing me that UEFA, the governing body of European football, is fining APOEL 40,000 Euros because of the racist behavior of some of its fans.
Be clear, everyone: that’s APOEL of Nicosia in Cyprus, not Hapoel of Tel Aviv in Israel.
But guess which club attracts protests from the likes of the Scottish Trades Union Congress? The one whose fans brandish fascist symbols or the one whose fans have a proud anti-racist tradition?
“Not Gaza, not Lebanon — our life is for Iran,” chanted the demonstrators, as they turned the Iranian regime’s annual Quds Day march into a protest against the tyrannical mullahs who show the same zeal in repressing the Iranian people as they do in supporting Hamas and Hezbollah.
As Basij militia thugs laid into the protesters, Ahmadinejad stated - again - that the Holocaust is “a lie” based upon a “mythical claim.” This latest bout of foulness came just a few hours after he declared that “we do not see any need” for nuclear weapons. I don’t know about you, dear readers, but I’m reluctant to accept any assurances from a Holocaust denier.
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.
Dear friends and colleagues,
Ramin Jahanbegloo, an Iranian-Canadian intellectual, has sent us this statement, asking us to solicit the signatures of our editors and writers. Both of us have signed it and urge you to do so. We plan on posting the letter and the names of signatories on our website, and Ramin also plans to send the statement to the New York Times and various other news sources.
If you would like to be added to the list of signatories, please respond to this email or email David Marcus at marcus@dissentmagazine.org
-Michael Walzer and Michael Kazin
We, the undersigned scholars, academics and writers around the world, are concerned about the human rights crisis in Iran. We request the United Nations to condemn the current coup d’état and support Iranians in their demand for a fair and democratic election. Deeply worried by the reports of Iranian paramilitary groups and security forces firing upon and arresting peaceful civilian demonstrators, we demand that the international community act now to prevent further violence and bloodshed. We call on the government of Iran to respect and uphold the right to peaceful protest. We call upon democratic institutions and organizations around the world to condemn government-sponsored violence against peaceful Iranian protestors. We also call on governments around the world to ask the UN Secretary General, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the Human Rights Council to appoint a UN special commission to monitor the post-election situation in Iran and to inform the Security Council about the arbitrary arrest and detention of student activists and leading reformists in Iran.
Every so often, you get a glimpse of what evil really is. There are few regimes on this earth as brutal and cruel as that of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe. Yet the hordes of demonstrators who poured into the streets to protest Israel’s Gaza operation are not perturbed by Mugabe; many of them would probably hail this vicious dictator as a courageous anti-imperialist.
“Pro-Palestinian demonstrators now taking to the streets in the West are being emboldened to shout the old slogans familiar to Jews on the receiving end of rioting in Arab lands in the 1940s: ‘The Jews are our dogs’, they are chanting in Arabic. But the media remain deaf, blind and dumb to the antisemitic agenda of these protestors.”
Read Point of No Return here.
The word “Frappuccino” may have taken on a meaning which its inventors never intended. Starbucks, the international coffee shop chain, has been targeted by furious pro-Hamas demonstrators because of its “support for the Israeli war machine.”
Continue reading ‘Starbucks: Conspiracy Theory Hits the Streets’
Bob left the following comment on an earlier post. I want to be sure that everyone sees it.
“I frequently walk past the Zimbabwe embassy in London - a grand Edwardian building in high British imperial style - and am moved to see the dignity of the protesters (mostly black Zimbabwean exiles) who regularly gather there, sometimes singing, sometimes standing in quiet mourning, ignored by the mainstream media. Such a stark contrast to those outside the Israeli embassy…”
David T of Harry’s Place with an eyewitness report from London, where assorted celebs, Islamists, totalitarian leftists and old-fashioned antisemites vented their ire. “There was, in fact, more Nazi imagery on display at that march than you’d expect to see at a fascist rally,” he says.
Here’s an image from Paris.
More details on Ha’aretz.
According to the police, the violence in Oslo which followed an attack on a pro-Israel demonstration on Thursday was the worst the Norwegian capital has seen since the 1980s.
On this and on other blogs (for example here and here), you can see various photos of pro-Hamas demonstrations around the world. This one is from Surabaya, Indonesia.
The building they are demonstrating outside of is a synagogue.
Antara News reports:
Anti-Israel demonstrators sealed the Beth Hashem synagogue in Surabaya, East Java, on Wednesday in protest against the atrocities committed by Israeli military on Palestinians.
The sealing of the synagogue was the follow-up of the demonstration held by activists of Islamic mass organizations in front of the Grahadi state building.
The action to seal the synagogue led by the general chairman of the Indonesian Council of Ulema of East Java, KH Abdusshomad Buchori, was initially marked by orations condemning Israeli attacks on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
Earlier the demonstrators burned the Israeli flag and raised the Palestinian flag in front the synagogue that had seldom been used by the Jewish people in Surabaya.
“If Israel would not stop its attacks on Palestine we will conduct a sweep on sympathizers, supporters and Israeli agents in East Java,” Abdusshomad said.
That threat encapsulates the utterly sinister, barbarous nature of the antisemitism which the Hamas salonistas in the west believe is a fabrication to deflect criticism of Israel.
I’ve heard many American Jews say that European Jews are fearful and meek; that in times of trouble they bury their hands in the sand and hope it’ll go away. It is a depiction that is deeply unfair.
After Saturday’s pro-Hamas protests in a number of European cities, 12,000 demonstrators took to the streets of Paris on Sunday.
Read the report here.
Below are some pictures of the Gaza protests in London today. Other protests were mounted in Paris, Athens and Madrid. Would that the genocide in Darfur elicited such righteous anger.
Grinning inanely beneath a banner comparing Israel’s defensive operation with the Nazi slaughter of six million Jews - and millions of others, including gypsies, homosexuals and the disabled - is the British parliamentarian George Galloway. Galloway - who presents a show on Press TV - has the Iranian Holocaust-denial outfit all worried. Apparently, he was injured during the demonstration. Though I don’t think that quite amounts to martyrdom.
Next to Galloway is 80s pop star Annie Lennox. And next to her is Bianca Jagger, who for some reason insists on keeping ex-husband Mick’s last name. In recent years, Bianca has reinvented herself as part salonista, part street activist. But she will be principally remembered for the fact that she once rode a white horse into Manhattan’s Studio 54 nightclub - and for nothing else.
After “We Are All Hezbollah,” this banner was entirely predictable. And now that IDF ground troops have entered Gaza, we may well be seeing a great deal more of it. We may also see more stupid obscenities such as the banner carried on a protest in Amsterdam which declared: “Anne Frank is turning in her grave. Oh Israel!”
(By the way, for an explanation of why writing a song with the refrain “doo doo doodoodoodoo doo doo doodoodoodoo…nineteeneightyfour” makes you an authority on Middle Eastern politics, do check out Alex here.)
Across the Arab and Islamic worlds, there has been a predictable wave of protest against Israel’s continuing operation to defend the western Negev from the rocket and mortar attacks of Hamas. More significantly, though, there is also a growing awareness that Hamas is not an innocent party.
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