Tag: anti-semitism

NATO states denounce “anti-Semitism” after Israeli football hooligans riot in Amsterdam

On the night of Wednesday to Thursday, Israeli football hooligans ran riot in Amsterdam, tearing down Palestinian flags, assaulting Arabs, and chanting anti-Gaza slogans. Some clashed with residents of Amsterdam, where a protest was planned against holding a game between the Maccabi Tel Aviv and Ajax Amsterdam football clubs during the Gaza genocide. Five people were taken to hospital, and yesterday the Israeli Foreign Ministry said all Maccabi fans were accounted for.

But Washington and European governments reacted with a deafening propaganda campaign, denouncing those who clashed with the hooligans as “anti-Semitic.” While no one was killed, far-right Dutch government strongman Geert Wilders is demanding a police crackdown, supposedly to stop a deadly “pogrom” against Jews. As of yesterday, at least 62 people had been detained in a wave of arrests across the city.

This propaganda campaign is a pack of lies, spun by governments complicit in genocide by their support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza. While they are outraged that five Israeli football hooligans were taken to hospital with light injuries, they support the mass murder of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

US President Joe Biden tweeted: “The Antisemitic attacks on Israeli soccer fans in Amsterdam are despicable and echo dark moments in history when Jews were persecuted. We’ve been in touch with Israeli and Dutch officials and appreciate Dutch authorities’ commitment to holding the perpetrators accountable. We must relentlessly fight anti-Semitism, wherever it emerges.”

European governments made similar comments. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz denounced the clashes as “intolerable” because they “attack us all,” and Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof called them a “terrible anti-Semitic attack.” Equating the clashes with the Holocaust, French President Emmanuel Macron “firmly condemned” violence that he claimed recalls “the most horrific hours of history.” Within the Netherlands, the press campaign is largely directed by Wilders himself.

“A pogrom in the streets of Amsterdam,” Wilders claimed in one tweet, adding: “Muslims with Palestinian flags hunting down Jews. I will NOT accept that. NEVER. The authorities will be held accountable for their failure to protect the Israeli citizens. Never again.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, wanted on charges of crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court, said he views the “incident with the utmost gravity.” He demanded “vigorous and swift action” by Dutch authorities.

These hysterical, unsubstantiated claims that the football clashes were anti-Semitic acts, or even deadly pogroms, aim to justify a mass police crackdown. No one was killed, nor have Dutch authorities provided evidence that the hooligans who were punched, or in one case thrown into a river, were targeted because they were Jewish. Rather, there is massive video evidence, backed up by statements of Amsterdam police, that Maccabi hooligans’ assaults on people and property in Amsterdam, together with their pro-genocide chants, provoked an eruption of anger.

There is reason to believe, moreover, that this was a deliberate provocation arranged between Israeli authorities and the far-right Dutch government. In the days before the Maccabi-Ajax game, Dutch newspapers De Telegraaf and Voetbalzone reported that agents of Israel’s Mossad foreign intelligence agency would be traveling among the Maccabi fans, supposedly to protect them from Dutch protesters.

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At UN, Netanyahu blames Israel’s isolation on ‘anti-Semitism’

Speaking at the UN General Assembly on 27 September, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blamed the condemnation of Israel at the UN and International Criminal Court (ICC) on anti-Semitism, saying allegations of war crimes have nothing to do with Israel’s actions, including its slaughter and starvation of Palestinians in Gaza.

“It’s not about Gaza,” he claimed. “It’s about Israel” and its very existence.

“[U]ntil this anti-Semitic swamp is drained, the UN will be viewed by fair-minded people everywhere as nothing more than a contemptuous farce,” Netanyahu claimed.

“What hypocrisy. What a double standard. What a joke,” he said to applause from Israel supporters.

The assembly hall was otherwise almost empty after several delegations walked out as Netanyahu reached the podium.

On 27 September, the UN member states voted overwhelmingly in the General Assembly to adopt a resolution calling on Israel to comply with international law, withdraw its military forces, immediately cease all new settlement activity, evacuate all settlers from occupied land, and dismantle parts of the separation wall it constructed inside the occupied West Bank.

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Zuckerberg’s Meta Cracks Down On Speech Criticizing “Zionists”

Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, announced Tuesday an update to its policies on so-called “hate speech,” specifically users discussing “Zionists.”

The company’s social media platforms will begin removing posts that use the words “Zionism” or “Zionist” to refer to Jewish people or Israelis.

The updated policy will target those who mention Jews are found in prominent roles in financial, political, and media institutions.

Users who compare Zionists to animals or use the term to deny the Holocaust will also be punished under the new rules.

Perhaps using the power of the world’s most wealthy companies to silence your detractors isn’t the best way of convincing them you’re not secretly pulling the strings of the global elite.

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Three Columbia deans permanently removed over disparaging texts containing ‘antisemitic tropes’

Three Columbia University deans have been “permanently removed” from their posts for sharing “very troubling” texts that “disturbingly touched on ancient antisemitic tropes,” school officials said Monday.

The three administrators — Susan Chang-Kim, Matthew Patashnick and Cristen Kromm — have been on leave since last month since it emerged they’d been involved in the disparaging text exchange that unfolded during a panel discussion about antisemitism on campus.

“This incident revealed behavior and sentiments that were not only unprofessional, but also, disturbingly touched on ancient antisemitic tropes,” Columbia president Minouche Shafik said in a statement.

“Whether intended as such or not, these sentiments are unacceptable and deeply upsetting, conveying a lack of seriousness about the concerns and the experiences of members of our Jewish community that is antithetical to our university’s values and the standards we must uphold in our community.”

Provost Angela Olinto said that “the three staff members involved have been permanently removed from their positions at Columbia College and remain on leave at this time.” It was not immediately clear what their current status was on staff.

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New York governor proposes face-mask ban to combat anti-Semitism

New York state’s Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul has proposed a legislative ban on face masks on the NYC subway system to combat acts of anti-Semitism, claiming criminals are concealing their identities using the face coverings.

Before the Covid-19 pandemic, New York had a law banning face masks in public. However, that rule was suspended in 2020 in light of the pandemic and the city’s authorities made face coverings mandatory for all subway riders until September 2022.

Speaking to reporters during a news conference in Albany on Thursday, Hochul stated that she was in talks with lawmakers over details of a bill once again banning masks, noting that the policy has to be clearly defined to include “common-sense exemptions” for the use of face masks for health, cultural or religious purposes. 

“We will not tolerate individuals using masks to evade responsibility for criminal or threatening behavior,” Hochul said, adding that her team is “working on a solution.”

The Mayor of New York City, Eric Adams, had also mentioned reviving some version of a mask ban and returning to the way things were before the pandemic, insisting that people should not be able to wear masks at protests.

Hochul explained that she was moved to propose the ban after receiving a report earlier this week about a group of people donning face masks that “took over a subway car, scaring riders and chanting things about Hitler and wiping out Jews.”

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The “Antisemitism Awareness Act” Poses A Real Danger To The First Amendment

Totalitarianism rarely shows its true face when it arises. Instead, it often pretends to stand for good and decent values. A new bill claims to fight antisemitism, something all decent people oppose. But antisemitism—that is, bias and discrimination against Jews because of their religion or ethnic identity—is already barred under civil rights law. The real goal of the so-called “Antisemitism Awareness Act” is to suppress free speech.

This dangerous bill was already passed by the House of Representatives and now awaits a Senate vote. It outsources some of our constitutional rights to an outside organization, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, whose arbitrary definition of antisemitism poses a threat to civil liberties. It could be used to crush legitimate debate about Israel, its policies, and American policies toward it—policies that have given rise to one of the greatest acts of genocide since the Holocaust.

This bill could suppress historical research and ban the mention of facts that have been verified by international organizations. It could initiate lawsuits, funding cuts, and disciplinary action across all American “education programs or activities, and for other purposes.” (Those “other purposes” are not defined.) Student protesters, professors, writers, and even elected officials could face political repression and become legal targets.

It turns the USA’s much-celebrated sense of liberty into a funhouse mirror, a grotesque and distorted reflection of everything this country claims to see in itself. Its passage would make a travesty of everything America’s leaders claim to believe in.

The implications are enormous. The federal government spends more than $100 billion per year on education, including $85.3 billion for kindergarten through high school, $24.6 billion in federal student aid assistance, and $1.3 billion in congressional earmarks for colleges (for projects that range from equipment purchases and airport runways to prison education programs). All these expenditures could be used as leverage to stifle legitimate debate.

Despite its “antisemitic” branding, the bill targets Jews as well as non-Jews. As literature professor Benjamin Balthasar writes, it would effectively ban the teaching of “much Jewish history and culture.” Balthasar observes that Hannah Arendt, Albert Einstein, Ed Asner, and “countless other Jews would now be considered ‘antisemitic’ under the new law.”

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Using a Fictional Antisemitism Crisis to Support a Real Genocide

One of the most frustrating things happening in the world right now is the way people of conscience are doing everything they can to bring a stop to Israel’s US-backed atrocities in Gaza, and Israel supporters are responding to this by pointing at an epidemic of “antisemitism” which has no existence outside their own imaginations — but we’re all expected to pretend it’s real and worthy of respect.

TV’s “Dr Phil” McGraw flew to Jerusalem to give war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu an hour-long platform on which to justify his genocidal violence in Gaza to an American audience, shamelessly assisting the Israeli prime minister’s apologia with common hasbara talking points of his own.

The duo spent lot of time smearing anti-genocide protesters at US universities as evil Jew haters. At one point Netanyahu went so far as to advance the ridiculous suggestion that this sudden wave of support for Palestinians has nothing to do with Israel’s actions in Gaza at all, but is solely due to a massive “explosion” in antisemitism which just so happens to coincide with those actions.

“It’s not directed at what we do, it’s directed at who we are,” Netanyahu said of the protests, adding, “It’s an antisemitic explosion that threatens all of civilization.”

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Beware of the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act

The House of Representatives passed the “Anti-Semitism Awareness Act” on May 2, by a vote of 320-91 in reaction to demonstrations on numerous university campuses and elsewhere against the brutal and genocidal policy of Israel in Gaza. The Act has now been sent to the Senate, where it seems certain to pass. This is an extremely dangerous bill that could criminalize the Bible, many Christian Churches, as well as any negative remarks about Israel and Jews. In brief, it threatens us with totalitarian thought control. We must do everything we can to oppose it.

First, let’s take an overview of the Act. It adopts the very broad definition of anti-Semitism of the “International Holocaust Remembrance Association.”  The Act calls this definition “a vital tool which helps individuals understand and identify the various manifestations of antisemitism.”

What does this definition say? “Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed in hatred of Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of anti-Semitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.” How you can be anti-Semitic toward someone who isn’t Jewish isn’t immediately apparent.

The authors of the definition give someone examples of what they consider anti-Semitic. These include saying that the Jews control the media and Congress, saying that Israel is a racist state, propagating the “blood libel” that the Jews killed Jesus, minimizing or denying the Holocaust, and claiming that Jews in America have “dual loyalty.”

As a number of writers including Tucker Carlson and John Zmirak have pointed out, the definition allows large parts of the Bible to be banned. The most famous such passage is Matthew 27: 25. “His blood be upon us and our children.” This is the “blood libel” that the Act wouldn’t let us teach!

You might object that the Act would never be enforced in this way. The American people would never stand for it! But it would always be there, like a sword of Damocles, hanging over our heads. And don’t be so sure it wouldn’t be enforced! The Scottish Hate Speech Act was passed in 2021, and people predicted it would never be enforced. Beginning in April 2024, though, it has been enforced, and many people have been fined and imprisoned for violating it.

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BLM activist Quintez Brown who was arrested for trying to kill a Jewish mayoral candidate showed ‘allegiance to anti-Semitic causes including Lion of Judah Armed Forces’ on his social media accounts

A Black Lives Matter activist who was charged with attempted murder last week following an alleged assassination attempt on a Jewish mayoral candidate exhibited anti-Semitic views on social media.

Quintez Brown, 21, was arrested and charged with attempted murder shortly after Monday’s shooting in Louisville, Kentucky, in which Democratic candidate Craig Greenberg narrowly avoided the bullet.

But he was released from prison and placed under house arrest just two days after the shooting when a BLM chapter, the Louisville Community Bail Fund, posted his $100,000 bond. 

In the months leading up to the shooting, Brown’s social media posts showed an increasing interest in Black nationalist and pan-Africanist leaders, and last week he appeared to encourage his followers to join the Lion of Judah Armed Forces. 

The group shares similar ideas to the Black Hebrew Israelite movement, which claims that Black Americans are the true descendants of the Biblical Hebrews and has been associated with several murders of Jews in the US.

Brown was one of 22 people chosen to meet the former President of the United States in 2019 as part of Obama’s My Brother’s Keeper Alliance, which is aimed at closing achievement gaps facing young boys and men of color.

He also made regular appearances on the BBC to discuss race matters in the US, and was running as an independent candidate for Louisville’s metro council. 

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Response to the “Antisemitism Awareness Act of 2023”

What is happening on college campuses and what is being pushed through the Congress

The passage of the “Antisemitism Awareness Act” on May 1, the traditional day for celebrating the contributions of labor, by the House of Representatives, represents a dangerous effort to weaponize the laws and regulations established over the last 150 years to protect citizens against racial discrimination and to use them now to justify the absolute power of a corrupt government, doing the bidding of multinational banks and corporations, to punish anyone speaking out against the horrific actions taking place in Gaza. But the bill is not ultimately about Gaza, or about Israel. It is about giving the government the authority absent from the Constitution to punish citizens for speaking the truth about the illegal and unconstitutional actions of the government, or other governments around the world’.

The current dry run on the campuses of American universities of protests against the Gaza killings was intentionally watered down. It featured students wearing masks, backing corrupt Democratic Party “progressives,” who did not go far in their criticism of the state. It also had the university and the police who had been given instructions not to attack with the brutality that they are capable of in other actions.

The very fact that the campus protests were widely discussed on NPR, a controlled mouthpiece of the multinational banks which entirely ignores all spontaneous actions by citizens, tells us that these student protests were used as cover for passing this bill.

Once the “Antisemitism Awareness Law” is in place and can used to justify massive shifts in the Department of Education, and by extension American elementary schools, middle schools, high schools, colleges and graduate programs, we can be certain that the true steel fist in the velvet glove will get to work shutting down all questions about the special relationship of the United States with Israel not only in terms of protests, but in terms of the content of courses, the text books assigned, and, by extension, in the media as a whole.

And it will not stop there. Once the precedent is in place, all criticism of just about anything can be outlawed, or subject to onerous punishments.

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