Wiesenthal Center's Top 10 Anti-Israel and Antisemitic Haters Of Jews And Israel

Yesterday, the Simon Wiesenthal Center released its list of the top 10 antisemites and haters of Israel: 2012 Top Ten Anti-Israel/Anti-Semitic Slurs: Mainstream Anti-Semitism Threatens World Peace:

The Simon Wiesenthal Center’s 2012 Top Ten Anti-Semitic/Anti-Israel Slurs exposes the growing menace of Jew hatred from people and movements who wield real power.

With Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood as #1, and the Iranian regime a close second, most of the other empowered anti-Semites are from Europe, where, as memory of the Nazi Holocaust fades, age-old anti-Semitism has returned with a vengeance and where a new generation of politicians are gaining political power by repackaging classic anti-Semitic stereotypes.

Here is the list, followed by an embedded copy of the Wiesenthal Center's report:

In The Arab World, Anti-Zionism Isn't What It Used To Be

The following by Gary C. Gambill is reposted here with permission:

Israel's Arab Spring

by Gary C. Gambill
National Post
November 15, 2012

http://www.meforum.org/3378/israel-arab-spring

As the greatest outbreak of Israel-Palestinian hostilities in years unfolds in Gaza, many Israelis are bracing for reaction from the surrounding Arab world. Theories abound, but no one has been entirely sure how the weakening and collapse of Arab autocracies over the past two years will impact the Jewish state.

The answer is likely to underwhelm.

For over six decades, Israel stood alone as the most vilified antagonist in Arab public life. Governments, media and civic groups singled out the Jewish state as a standing crime against humanity, while glorifying or ignoring mass murderers such as Saddam Hussein and Muammar Qaddafi. Outside observers assumed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to be such a visceral affront to Arabs everywhere as to account almost single-handedly for their collective political dysfunction. Arab anger toward Israel "weakens the legitimacy of moderate regimes," warned U.S. CENTCOM commander David H. Petraeus in 2010. Take away those "moderate" regimes — such as Hosni Mubarak's government in Egypt — and Israel would presumably be in a world of trouble.

In fact, while the Arab Spring has invigorated nearly every other revanchist political cause under the sun, thus far it hasn't unleashed a surge of anti-Zionist fervour.

The War Against The Jews: The Roots Of Anti-Zionism In Antisemitism

The following by Efraim Karsh is reposted here with permission:

The War Against the Jews

by Efraim Karsh
Israel Affairs
July 2012, pp. 319-343

http://www.meforum.org/3299/war-against-jews

.

The sustained anti-Israel de-legitimization campaign is a corollary of the millenarian obsession with the Jews in the Christian and the Muslim worlds. Since Israel is the world's only Jewish state, and since Zionism is the Jewish people's national liberation movement, anti-Zionism—as opposed to criticism of specific Israeli policies or actions—means denial of the Jewish right to national self-determination. Such a discriminatory denial of this basic right toonly one nation (and one of the few that can trace their corporate identity and territorial attachment to antiquity) while allowing it to all other groups and communities, however new and tenuous their claim to nationhood, is pure and unadulterated anti-Jewish racism, or anti-Semitism as it is commonly known.

Video: What Do Anti-Israel Teachers Do At A Socialist Convention?

Have you ever wondered what the International Socialist Organization thinks about Israel?

If you were, you might get a clue from this article about the history of Zionsim on their site:

That's right: even then, Zionists clearly had one goal in mind: "the system of colonial domination of the rest of the world"

Cartoon: Europe 1912 vs Europe 2012 -- Little Has Changed

Benjamin Weinthal writes in The Jerusalem Post about Swiss paper Neue Zürcher Zeitung promoting the decision by the Migros supermarket to boycott products from Israeli settlements.

In response to these and similar developments, Jewish Press cartoonist Asher Schwartz responded with the following:

"The Bride Is Beautiful, But She Is Married To Another Man": Debunking The Anti-Zionist Myth

Diana Muir Appelbaum touches upon an Anti-Zionist myth, a fabrication, that has been repeated by the likes of Anthony Pagden, Ghada Karmi and Avi Shlaim.

Anthony Pagden, Ghada Karmi and Avi Shlaim have all recounted versions of the following story in print as if it actually happened:

Efraim Karsh: Betraying Ben-Gurion

The following from the Middle East Forum is reposted with permission

Betraying Ben-Gurion

by Efraim Karsh
Hudson New York
December 22, 2011

It is ironic that Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU), Israel's only university bearing the name of the Jewish state's founding father, and established in the ancient desert he dreamt of reviving, has become a hotbed of anti-Israel propaganda at the expense of proper scholarly endeavor.

So much so that an international committee of scholars, appointed by Israel's Council for Higher Education to evaluate political science and international relations programs in Israeli universities, recently recommended that BGU "consider closing the Department of Politics and Government" unless it abandoned its "strong emphasis on political activism," improved its research performance, and redressed the endemic weakness "in its core discipline of political science." In other words, they asked that the Department return to accurate scholarship rather than indoctrinate the students with libel.

Video: When Anti-Zionism becomes Anti-Semitism

This video was taken at the annual Al-Quds rally at Queen's Park in Toronto on August 28, 2011.

It is an alarming reminder of how anti-Semitism frequently emerges in the form of "criticism" of Israel.

At this rally, Israel is called "a cancer", is accused of "sucking resources and blood", and Hezbollah flags were flown (a banned terrorist organization).

The video also shows how those who genuinely believe in human rights often share a podium with hate-filled extremists. Activists should be accountable for the company they keep:

Attacking Israeli Flag Conveys Hero Status On Some--But Not All

In Egypt, taking down--and burning--the Israeli flag automatically confers hero status:

Ahmad A-Shahat says he 'insisted on climbing on the roof and take down the flag of the Zionist entity because that was one of the goals of the revolution – to depose Mubarak and all his friends, among them the Zionist entity'

"When I went up the steps of the embassy, I thought of the blood of the Egyptian victims," that was how Ahmad A-Shahat described his "act of heroism," which won the support of the masses in Egypt – taking down the Israeli flag from its embassy building in Cairo.

The unknown Egyptian managed to climb on the embassy's roof on Saturday, switch the Israeli flag with the Egyptian one to the cheers of thousands, and then burn the Israeli flag.

A-Shahat may have been an "unknown Egyptian" at the time, but we'll have to see if Andy Warhol's rule applies to the Middle East.

Meanwhile, back in the West, it seems that not everyone who abuses the Israeli flag gets hero status.

An attack on the Israeli flag by a student at St. Andrews in Scotland was recognized as a racist act:

Paul Donnachie, 19, put his hands down his trousers then rubbed them on a flag belonging to Jewish student Chanan Reitblat.

Donnachie also accused Mr Reitblat of being a terrorist during the incident at the halls of residence in March.

The case against his co-accused Samuel Colchester, 20, was found not proven.

Donnachie has been expelled from St Andrews and Mr Colchester has been suspended for one year.

The incident was not just dismissed as or played down, as is likely would have happened even in the US. It was handled in court:

Cupar Sheriff Court had earlier heard evidence from Mr Reitblat, a chemistry student on a one-term exchange from the Jewish Yeshiva University in New York, who said he felt "violated and devastated" by the incident.

...Sheriff Charlie Macnair told Donnachie, a history student and member of the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign, that he was satisfied he had behaved the way he had towards the Jewish student because Mr Reitblat was a citizen of the State of Israel.

He said: "This flag was his personal property. I consider that your behaviour did evince malice towards Mr Reitblat because of his presumed membership of Israel.

"I'm satisfied that you said Israel was a terrorist state and the flag was a terrorist symbol and I also hold that you said that Mr Reitblat was a terrorist."

Apparently, words and actions really do have consequences in some parts of the world.

For his part, Donnachie was quoted as saying:

This is a ridiculous conviction. I'm a member of anti-racism campaigns, and I am devastated that as someone who was fought against racism I have been tarnished in this way.

That only goes to show you how cheap the price of admittance is to the glorious world of self-proclaimed anti-racist human rights activists. It also demonstrates the kind of behavior that is supposed to be excused by cloaking oneself in the mantle of a defender of 'anti-racism'.

Scotland deserves a lot of credit.

As for Donnachie, maybe Donnachie should himself consider going on a student exchange program?
To Egypt.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Egypt.

You Know You're A Zionist--When People Tell You What You Mean When You Say You're A Zionist

The blog Life Inside a Chicken has his own version of "You know you're a Zionist when"--a rehash of a variety of myths, slanders and wasted imagination accusing "Zionists" of any of a number of things.

With a different perspective I offer my point-by-point response, illustrating how you really know you're a Zionist.

You truly know you're a Zionist when...

Article Arlene Kushner: UNRWA's Anti-Israel Bias

UNRWA's Anti-Israel Bias

by Arlene Kushner
Middle East Quarterly
Summer 2011, pp. 84-91 (view PDF)

On October 22, 2010, the outgoing director of the New York office of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), Andrew Whitley, stunned his listeners at a Washington conference by arguing that "the right of return is unlikely to be exercised to the territory of Israel to any significant or meaningful extent," and that UNRWA should help resettle the refugees rather than perpetuate their refugee status.[1]

Confronted with a barrage of criticism from the Palestinian Authority and many Arab states, Whitley quickly backed down, claiming, "It is definitely not my belief that the refugees should give up on their basic rights, including the right of return."

Middle East analyst Daniel Pipes commented: "That UNRWA might contemplate going out of business and helping end the Arab-Israeli conflict … was too good to be true."[2]

State Department: Anti-Zionism Can Be Anti-Semitism

After having come up with a definition of Anti-Semitism for the new millenium, the State Department has now come out with a report on Contemporary Global Anti-Semitism [PDF].

According to a State Department spokesman, anti-Zionism can be a manifestation of Anti-Semitism:

The report is thematic in nature and, using illustrative examples of contemporary forms of anti-Semitism, provides a broad overview of anti-Semitic incidents, discourse and trends. The report documents traditional forms of anti-Semitism such as those associated with Nazism, but also discusses new manifestations of anti-Semitism, including instances when criticism of Israel and Zionism crosses the line into anti-Semitism. The report covers anti-Semitism in both government and private media, and within the United Nations system. It concludes with a review of governmental and nongovernmental efforts to combat the problem.

That being the case, what do we find in Appendix I: Examples of Anti-Semitic Incidents (Section I: 77)? Two and a half pages of examples of Violence, Abuse/Intimidation, Property Damage, and Cemetery Desecrations from Europe and Russian--but nothing from the Arab world. The introduction to the section does point out:

Most examples report on incidents that occur in Western democratic countries, which allow transparent monitoring of societal conditions. Information about anti-Semitic incidents in closed societies (e.g., Iran) is largely unavailable; the lack of reports of anti-Semitic incidents in such societies should not be construed as an absence of anti-Semitism.

That ignores the fact that there is no end of Anti-Semitic cartoons coming out--and there is always Ahmadinejad threatening to wipe Israel off the map or comparing it to a bacteria.

Still, the admission that anti-Zionism can be a form of Anti-Semitism is a step in the right direction. I guess it would be too much to hope that the report would quote from the Fatah and Hamas Charters.

[Hat tip: NRO Web Briefing ]

Technorati Tag: Israel and Anti-Semitism and Anti-Zionism.