Level Of Antisemitism In The US Up For First Time Since 2004

The number of antisemitic incidents in the US is up for the first time since 2004:

The number of anti-Semitic incidents in the United States increased for the first time since 2004, according to the Anti-Defamation League's annual audit.

The ADL Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents released Tuesday showed that there were 1,239 incidents in 2010, up slightly from the 1,211 reported the previous year. The audit tracks assaults, vandalism and harassment reported during the calendar year in 45 states and the District of Columbia.

Huge "Jihad" Banner Shows Up At Soccer Match--In Poland

You don't normally expect a Jihad banner to be displayed in a soccer stadium in Poland:

Anti-racism groups on Friday called on European football's governing body UEFA to punish Polish club Legia Warsaw after fans brandished a "Jihad" banner during a Europa League match against Israeli side Hapoel Tel Aviv.

Shurat HaDin - Israel Law Center Gears Up for Litigation Against U.S. Schools

Thursday, September 8, 2011

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

JEWISH CIVIL RIGHTS GROUP WARNS HUNDREDS OF UNIVERSITY PRESIDENTS OVER ANTI-ISRAEL HATE ON AMERICAN COLLEGE CAMPUSES

Law Center That Sunk the Gaza Flotilla Gears Up for Litigation Against U.S. Schools

(September 8, 2011, New York) Jewish civil rights group Shurat HaDin - Israel Law Center warned university and college presidents around the United States that their schools may be subject to civil and criminal liability if they do not take necessary measures to ensure the educational rights and safety of Jewish and Israeli students on their campuses. In letters sent to campus administrators, the Law Center also cautioned that their schools have a duty to reasonably prevent university funds from being diverted to unlawful activities that are directed against the state of Israel.

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:

One Day Conference To Coincide With Durban III

PRESS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE August 1, 2011

Deb Colton 631 549-0925 debcoco@optonline.net

The Perils of Global Intolerance: the United Nations & "Durban III"

One Day Conference hosted by
The Hudson Institute and the Touro College Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust

September 22, 2011, 9 a.m. – 6 p.m.
Millennium UN Plaza Hotel 

.

New York, NY – The Hudson Institute and the Touro College Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust today announced an historic conference targeting manifestations of racism, anti-Semitism and other forms of intolerance at the United Nations. The conference will coincide with the highly controversial UN event known as “Durban III.” Organizers were galvanized, according to Anne Bayefsky, a Senior Fellow of the Hudson Institute and Director of the Touro College Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust, after learning that “Americans will be mourning the 10th anniversary of September 11, 2001 at the same time as the United Nations will appear to be legitimizing the kind of intolerance that drives terrorism itself.”

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.

Hikind Wants To Extend Refugee Status To Jews...In Western Europe

Almost sounds like a joke.
Almost.

Following a recent fact-finding trip to Europe, a Democrat who represents Boro Park in the state Assembly, Dov Hikind, said yesterday he is convinced that anti-Semitism has made life intolerable for Jews in England, France, Germany, and Belgium.

At a dinner tonight organized by the New York Association for New Americans, he said he plans to call on President Bush to accord special refugee status to Western European Jews.

While Western European Jews would likely fail to qualify as persecuted refugees under State Department standards, America has made rare exceptions for certain groups in the past, including Jews and other religious minorities in the former Soviet Union who qualified as refugees under the 1989 Lautenberg Amendment. Mr. Hikind wants this treatment extended to Western European Jews.

I don't know if Hikind is actually serious about extending that kind of status or if he merely sees this proposal as a way to give more exposure to the issue and create more discussion of the problem.

The fact that we are talking about Jews in Western Europe--in Germany, France, and England--and not Eastern European Jews is mind-boggling when you think about it.

When the situation of Jews in England requires more attention than their situation in Poland, we have a major problem.

[Hat tip: The Anchoress]

Technorati Tag: Jews and Anti-Semitism.

The Rise Of Anti-Semitism In Great Britain--And Who's Behind It

Melanie Phillips describes the results in Britain of the unholy alliance of the media, the churches, and the political and academic Left in the demonizing of the Jews and of Israel:

According to the Community Security Trust, the defense organization of Britain’s 300,000-strong Jewish community, last year saw nearly 600 anti-Semitic assaults, incidents of vandalism, cases of abuse, and threats against Jewish individuals and institutions—double the 2001 number. According to the police, Jews are four times more likely to be attacked because of their religion than are Muslims. Every synagogue service and Jewish communal event now requires guards on the lookout for violence from both neo-Nazis and Muslim extremists. Orthodox Jews have become particular targets; some have begun wearing baseball caps instead of skullcaps and concealing their Star of David jewelry. [emphasis added]

Phillips details the excesses of all three groups--read the whole thing.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Anti-Semitism and Melanie Phillips.

THE DAILYKOS AND ANTI-SEMITISM. With Democratic presidential candidates making their pilgrimage to the YearlyKos convention in Chicago, take a step back and take a look at one of the sources that powers their well known zeal.

Powerful Political Blog Attracts Israel Hate Posts

Eyal Rosenberg resigned as a diarist for the powerful political blog DailyKos on May 9 after "all the Israel Hate spewing out of one too many diaries around here."

As he wrote in his last post: "Reading these past months on dkos has led me to believe that people here, under the 'progressive' banner, support views that end up in one place: Me dead."

Recently, a DailyKos diarist suggested "gassing Joe Lieberman like a dog."

Rosenberg notes that the anti-Semitic attacks are not "isolated." In his brief time as a diarist (several months), he counted 5,000 Israel or Jewish references in the DailyKos. That's about 23 posts on Jews or Israel a day, most negative.

This past spring, one of the site's diarists posted an image that morphs the face of Israel's minister of strategic affairs, Avigdor Lieberman, with that of Adolf Hitler's shown holding a skull painted with a Star of David, under the caption "Zionism was and remains a racist ideology."

There are thousands of posts blaming Israel for all the terror and conflict in the Middle East.

This summary of the original Washington Times article appears in Daily Alert.
Read the Washington Times article.

Technorati Tag: DailyKos and Anti-Semitism.

SWEDISH ANTI-SEMITISM: IGNORANCE AND ARROGANCE. Zvi Mazel, former Israeli Ambassador to Sweden describes what he found there.

Anti-Israelism and Anti-Semitism in Sweden

Interview with Zvi Mazel

"Sweden claims to be a superdemocracy, an example of enlightenment and openness. People with such pretensions should be a little more knowledgeable about Israel, another democracy after all. And yet the average Swedish citizen does not know more than what the country's shallow media tells him. This is often anti-Israeli, and the public is influenced by it."

Zvi Mazel was the Israeli ambassador to Sweden from December 2002 to April 2004. "Before, I had been for five years ambassador to Egypt, where massive hatred of Israel was promoted on a daily basis. We were regularly accused of all that was wrong everywhere in the world. I did not expect to find a somewhat similar atmosphere in a democratic country such as Sweden."

During his stay in Stockholm, Mazel developed a critical view of Sweden. Among large parts of the society's elite he encountered a discriminatory attitude and hostility to Israel as well as pseudomorality and arrogance. Sweden's apparent tolerance for rabid anti-Semitism has reinforced his opinion of the country's ruling classes.

Read the interview.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Sweden and Anti-Semitism.

FIGHTING ANTI-SEMITISM UNDER TITLE VI. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 contains a tool that can now be used when free speech is used as an excuse to intimidate on campus.

New legal tools fight anti-Semitism, CLJ's Susan Tuchman says
By Toby Tabachnick
Chronicle Correspondent

...That legal tool is Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Thanks in part to the efforts of Tuchman, anti-Semitism can now be challenged under Title VI.

...Tuchman explained that Title VI provides a legal recourse with which to battle campus anti-Semitism. Title VI requires that recipients of federal funding must ensure that their programs are free from harassment, intimidation and discrimination on the basis of race, color and national origin, or risk losing that funding. Historically, anti-Semitism did not fall within Title VI because it was viewed to be discrimination based on religion, which was not protected by the Act.

...In the fall of 2004, the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) clarified how it would interpret the law, and said that because Jews shared a common ethnicity, they would be protected under Title VI.

Read the whole thing.

Technorati Tag: Civil Rights Act and Anti-Semitism and Susan Tuchman and Title VI.

WHAT YOUTUBE WILL ALLOW: Jihad Watch notes that YouTube is very sensitive about anti-Islamist videos, but free speech apparently protects Anti-Semitic videos.


[Hat tip: Hot Air]

Technorati Tag: YouTube and Anti-Semitism.

ANOTHER ANTI-SEMITIC ATTACK IN FRANCE: Unlike when the grand rabbi of the Nord Pas de Calais region in northern France was attacked, this time at least they are saying it is anti-semitic.

Somewhat different from one of those 'hate crimes' when someone places a ham next to a Muslim.
[Hat tip: LGF]

Technorati Tag: France and Anti-Semitism.

ANTI-SEMITIC ATTACKS WORLDWIDE ARE UP: Yid With Lid has the results from a new survey.

Technorati Tag: Jews and Anti-Semitism.

MARK TWAIN'S ESSAY 'CONCERNING THE JEWS': This essay by Mark Twain was published in Harper's Magazine in 1898. In it, Twain says that he wrote the essay to respond to a letter about Anti-Semitism:

"Tell me, therefore, from your vantage-point of cold view, what in your mind is the cause. Can American Jews do anything to correct it either in America or abroad? Will it ever come to an end? Will a Jew be permitted to live honestly, decently, and peaceably like the rest of mankind? What has become of the Golden Rule?"

The Jewish Virtual Library has background on Mark Twain's views on and writings about Jews--and how they changed.

Read Twain's essay.

Technorati Tag: Mark Twain and Jews and Anti-Semitism.

FDR--ANOTHER PRESIDENT POPULAR WITH JEWS WHO LET THEM DOWN? Bernard Edinger writes about the findings in a new book by Jonathan Fenby in Great Britain, Alliance: The Inside Story of How Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill Won One War and Began Another. Edinger quotes from the book about a discussion with General Noguès, the governor in Rabat, Morocco about the future of Jews in North Africa--at a time when the Nazi murder of Jews was known:

Ceilings should be fixed for the number of Jews in professions in line with their percentage of the overall population, the president said. They should not overcrowd those professions, he added. Noguès replied that it would be “a sad thing for the French to win the war merely to open the way for the Jews to control the professions and business world of North Africa.

Enlarging on his quota idea, Roosevelt said it would eliminate "the specific and understandable complaints which the Germans bore towards the Jews in Germany, namely, that while they represented a small part of the population, over fifty per cent of the lawyers, doctors, school teachers, college professors, etc, in Germany were Jews." The 'understandable' was, at best, another sign of the president’s irresponsibility and his loose use of language to soft-soap whomever he was meeting. More likely, it represented a terrible blindness to the fate of European Jewry.

Read the entire article.

Technorati Tag: FDR and Roosevelt and Holocaust and Anti-Semitism.

ANTI-SEMITISM--GOOD NEWS/BAD NEWS: The good news? Anti-Semitic attacks are down in the US. The bad news? Anti-Semitic attacks are on the rise everywhere else.

Technorati Tag: Anti-Semitism.

The Numbers Don't Back Up CAIR--Neither In US Nor England

Here in the US, the numbers clearly show that despite CAIR's claims--which have been shown to be exaggerated--that anti-Muslim attacks are frequent and a major issue, the fact is that there is a larger proportion of Anti-Jewish attacks. Also, while the number of anti-Muslim attacks in the US have gone down, anti-Jewish attacks have gone up:

o For 2005, the FBI report on bias attacks indicates that 68.5% were anti-Jewish as opposed to only 11.1% were anti-Islamic. Jews are far and away the group that is in greater danger from bias attacks and more in need of protection

o For 2004, the FBI report indicated that 67.8% of bias attacks were anti-Jewish while 12.7% showed anti-Islamic bias. While anti-Jewish bias attacks were slightly up--anti-Islamic attacks actually went down.

Mere Rhetoric links to an article that shows that both CAIR--and Noam Chomsky--are wrong about the extent of Anti-Jewish and Anti-Muslim attacks in England as well:

Jewish people are four times more likely to be attacked because of their religion than Muslims, according to figures compiled by the police.

One in 400 Jews compared to one in 1,700 Muslims are likely to be victims of "faith hate" attacks every year. The figure is based on data collected over three months in police areas accounting for half the Muslim and Jewish populations of England and Wales. The crimes range from assault and verbal abuse to criminal damage at places of worship.

Police forces started recording the religion of faith-hate crime victims only this year. They did so on the instruction of the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), which wanted a clear picture of alleged community tensions around the country, following reports of Muslims being attacked after September 11 and the July 7 London bombings last year.

However, the first findings, for July to September, obtained by The Sunday Telegraph under freedom of information legislation, show that it is Jews who are much more likely to be targeted because of their religion.

The situation in England seems more precarious for Jews than here in the US due to the apparent complacency of the legal system there:

The CPS report revealed that not a single person accused of an anti-Semitic crime had been prosecuted on a charge of religiously aggravated offending. It said: "The police statistics include incidents where no defendant has been identified or where there is insufficient evidence for a prosecution."A report by MPs in September said British Jews were more vulnerable to attack and abuse now than for a generation.

Maybe it's time the needs of the real victims of bias attacks was addressed.
Are you listening, Congressman Conyers?

Technorati Tag: Anti-Semitism.

Not All Ceremonial Slaughter Is Forbidden In Norway

In Jew-Hatred in Contemporary Norwegian Caricatures, Erez Uriely writes

Getting rid of the Jews was not an alien notion to the Norwegians, who heard their parliamentarians and ministers propounding racialist theory and expressing anti-Semitic ideas. In 1929, Member of Parliament Jens Hundseid told the parliament that: "We haven't invited the Jews to our land and we have no obligation to hand over animals to them for their religious orgies." Soon after, the Jewish ritual slaughter (shechita) of animals was forbidden.

In principle, the Norwegian law and constitution grant freedom of religion to everyone. In practice, the one exception is the Jews. Norway is one of the few countries in the world where shechita is still banned. In Germany, shechita was forbidden only during the Nazi period. In Norway, however, the ban was introduced three years before the Nazis took power in Germany and continues till today, whereas Muslim ceremonial slaughter (hallal) is permitted. Compassion for animals does not explain the ban on shechita, since hunting is permitted and popular in Norway. About 150,000 people (3 percent of the population) are registered hunters;5 hunted prey often suffers a much slower and more painful death than in Jewish ritual slaughter.

Read the entire article

Technorati Tag: Shechita and Norway and Anti-semitism.

Colmumbia University Hosts 2 Ex-Terrorists and An Ex-Nazi Next Week

Tel-Chai Nation posts a media advisory that's out about ex-terrorists Walid Shoebat and Zachariah Anani and former Hitler Youth Hilmar von Campe speaking at Columbia University next week. According to the web site referred to in the advisory, the three:

will begin their "Campaign for Freedom" at Columbia University. Their goal is to expose the various facets of radical Islamism and its global implications.

Tel-Chai Nation thinks this might be something of a "turnaround" by Columbia University which has been in the news for Anti-semitism and racist professors. I hope that is right.

Then again, the Dean at Columbia did invite Ahmadinejad to address the school while he was in town.

Technorati Tag: Walid Shoebat and Columbia University.