Pro-Israeli lobby groups weaponizing 'diversity' campaigns to pump up anti-Palestinianism sentiment

Yves Engler
Dissident Voice

Should "Jewish Heritage Month" be used as a cover for Israeli nationalism and to suppress Palestinian protest?

A recent incident at a Toronto high school demonstrates the depravity of the pro-Israel lobby. It also illustrates their use of Canadian cultural and "diversity" initiatives to promote a country that declares itself to be the exact opposite of diverse.

Amidst the recent slaughter of nonviolent protesters in Gaza, a half-century illegal occupation of the West Bank and weekly bombings in Syria, an Israeli flag marked with "Jewish Heritage Month" was hoisted in the main foyer of Forest Hill Collegiate Institute. After a couple days the flag created by Israeli nationalist students was moved - possibly due to complaints from other students - to a less prominent location where Jewish Heritage Month events were taking place. In response B'nai Brith, Hasbara Fellowships, Simon Wiesenthal Centre for Holocaust Studies and Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) all claimed persecution. "Discrimination has absolutely no place in our schools", noted a CIJA spokesperson with regards to moving the Israeli flag to a less prominent location in the school. For their part, the Wiesenthal Center said our "objective is to ensure that TDSB [Toronto District School Board] adheres to its own values of equity and inclusivity for all students" while B'nai Brith's press release decried the "Jewish students who have had their heritage denigrated." That group then published a story titled "Forest Hill Collegiate Has History of Alienating Jewish Students, Former Pupil Says."

After the uproar the flag was returned to the Forest Hill Collegiate Institute's main foyer and the TDSB apologized. At an assembly to discuss the matter, in which the principal and TDSB representative spoke standing behind a podium adorned with an Israeli flag, a student apparently yelled "Free Palestine". B'nai Brith immediately denounced the brave, internationalist-minded high schooler, tweeting: "

This morning, before an assembly about the removal of a #JewishHeritageMonth banner at Forest Hill Collegiate, a student yelled 'Free Palestine' during the morning announcements. We have been assured that this was not approved by the school and that an investigation is underway."

In another Twitter post B'nai Brith claimed the Israeli flag flap made a "mockery of Canada's first Jewish Heritage Month." Their statement highlights a mindset that views gaining official sanction of cultural initiatives as a way to strengthen their campaign to support a violent, European colonial outpost in the Middle East. 

Read more

New IDF Chief Rabbi Says Soldiers Can Rape Arab Women During Wartime to Boost Morale

Matt Agorist

 

Outgoing chief rabbi, Brig. Gen. Rafi Peretz, of the Israeili Defense Forces, who is stepping down after six years in the position is being replaced. And, his successor, Rabbi Col. Eyal Karim’s appointment is being met with backlash — as he is outspoken for allowing soldiers to rape women during wartime.

Karim, who was announced on Monday as the intended new IDF chief rabbi, has provoked controversy with previous misogynistic statements, such as opposing female conscription and implying that rape was permissible in times of war.

According to Ynet News, Karim has been serving as the head of the Rabbinate Department in the Military Rabbinate. He is an alumnus of the Bnei Akiva Nachalim and the Ateret Cohanim yeshivas, and he served previously as a combat paratrooper, eventually commanding their elite reconnaissance unit, before taking a break from the military and eventually returning to its rabbinate.

In 2012, Karim’s controversy started when the Hebrew religious website KIPA, asked him, in the light of certain biblical passages, if IDF soldiers were permitted to commit rape during wartime despite the general understanding that such an act is widely considered repugnant.

His answer enraged many Israelis.

“Although intercourse with a female gentile is very grave, it was permitted during wartime (under the conditions it stipulated) out of consideration for the soldiers’ difficulties,” he wrote. “And since our concern is the success of the collective in the war, the Torah permitted [soldiers] to satisfy the evil urge under the conditions it stipulated for the sake of the collective’s success.”

In other words, soldiers can rape innocent women during times of war in order to keep their morale up. 

Read more

What’s the difference between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism?

Comment: The fact that this sort of coverage has appeared at the BBC of all places shows that there is sufficient pressure to address it even if it is an attempt at damage limitation. That said, for the BBC it's not a bad write up.  Slowly, the heat is being turned up on Zionist injustice. 

-------------------------

BBC News Magazine

• 10 High Street stores of 1976 that have disappeared
• What are US university ‘honour codes’?
• The lost art of reading other people’s handwriting
• Debate over China city’s women-only bus

The UK Labour Party has been at the centre of a row over anti-Semitism, including its relationship to anti-Zionism. What do these terms actually mean?

• Anti-Semitism is “hostility and prejudice directed against Jewish people” (OED).
• Zionism refers to the movement to create a Jewish state in the Middle East, corresponding to the historic land of Israel – anti-Zionism opposes that.
• But some say “Zionist” can be used as a coded attack on Jews, while others say the Israeli government and its supporters are deliberately confusing anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism to avoid criticism.

Former London Mayor Ken Livingstone was suspended from Labour following a series of remarks about Israel, including the suggestion that Hitler supported Zionism before the Holocaust.

It follows the suspension of Bradford West MP Naz Shah after it emerged she had once suggested, among other things, that Israel should be moved to the United States. The new president of the National Union of Students, Malia Bouattia, has also been heavily criticised for remarks she made about Zionists.

Many in the Jewish community say the use of “Zionist” as a term of abuse reflects a rising tide of bigotry and racism directed at Jews.

Read more

Interview: The Saker speaks with Gilad Atzmon

The Saker

It has been already 6 years since I interviewed Gilad for the first time and when a friend recently suggested that it was time for a new conversation, I immediately agreed, as did Gilad who, in spite of his over-booked and hectic lifestyle took the time to reply to my questions. Gilad is, in my opinion, not only the most original and talented jazz musician currently composing and playing (make sure to get his latest CD "The Whistle Blower"), he is also an extremely profound philosopher who has the amazing courage not only to ask the key questions, but to also answer them. His book "The Wandering Who" is, I strongly believe, a must read for anybody wanting to see through the "fog" of modern "Jewish anti-Zionism". As somebody who has gotten his share of hate mail, I can only begin to imagine the kind of hate-filled poison which Gilad has had to put up with for his courage and even though he will not speak about it, I will say that it takes exceptional courage and moral strength to do what Gilad did and is still doing. So, with no hyperbole at all, but quite literally, I will say that Gilad Atzmon is a modern hero whose courage and phenomenal intellect will, I am sure, eventually be recognized as one of the most brilliant ones of our time. I am deeply honored that he considers me to be a friend. 

The Saker

Q&A with Gilad Atzmon

The Saker: Since our last interview in 2009 the world has changed a lot and in many ways. In your opinion, has the global resistance to the Empire grown stronger or weaker over these years and why? What about the current regime in Israel, do you see it weakening or not? 

Gilad Atzmon: It all depends on how you define the 'Empire.' Is the empire the market forces that drive global capitalism? Is it the Neocons who push us into Zionist wars, one after the other? Or maybe it is the tyranny of correctness that suppresses our ability to think authentically? Is it possible that these three are mere symptoms of an obscure impetus we are yet to be able to define or even grasp?

In my recent writing I argue that Jewish power is the ability to silence criticism of Jewish power. This observation helps us to adopt a transcendental take on issues of the 'empire' and the negative powers that dominate our lives. Instead of talking about the empire, we must first identify the forces that prevent us from talking about the empire. We are getting very close to that bone now.

A growing number of commentators are now willing openly to challenge Jewish power. I assume that the rapidly growing Jewish fear of 'anti Semitism' relates to the fact that many Jews are also fearful of the extent of the power that is held by other Jews and is closely related to the 'empire'.

This leads us to Israel and its Jewish Lobby. I think that in the last two years we have witnessed a clear transformation. Western leadership says no to Zionist warmongering. I guess they have had enough of these disastrous futile wars.
 
Read more

A Personal Note On Jewish Statistics

Gilad Atzmon

The British political establishment is in a state of panic. A poll revealed last week that “a quarter of Jews in Britain have considered leaving the country in the last two years and well over half (58%) feel they have no long term future in Europe.” This could be a potential disaster for British political parties. Eighty per cent of the Tories are members of the pro Israeli lobby, The Conservative Friends Of Israel (CFI), and a similar percentage of Labour and Libdem MPs have vowed their allegiance to Israel through their respective Jewish Lobby groups.  The Jews are clearly a vital source of funding for British politicians. In fact, it has become hard to imagine what British politics would look like without Jewish Lobby’s money.  Though the vast majority of British MPs are friends of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, it has not been established how many of our MPs are friendly with Manchester and Hartlepool.

Apparently a recent poll found that anti-Semitic beliefs are widely prevalent among the British public with 45 percent of Britons agreeing with at least one of these ‘anti-Semitic’ sentiments: a quarter of Britons believed "Jews chase money more than other British people," one in six agreed that "Jews think they are better than other people" and "Jews have too much power in the media."

However, if Jewish leaders want to focus on statistics, they surely know how to scientifically verify whether there is an element of truth in these bizarre baseless arguments that apparently 45% of Brits hold about their Jewish citizens. It would be simple to determine whether, in fact, Jews are over represented in the financial sector or in the media or politics. If Jewish leaders are concerned about the safety of their community members, it would be a good idea to examine these questions closely and think about how to address the issue. Clearly, labeling 45% of the Brits as ‘anti Semites’ is not going to make Jews feel safer in Britain.

I have lived in London, one of the most diverse cities on this planet, for about 20 years. I am surrounded by people from all over the world. Some communities occasionally prefer to voluntarily segregate themselves.  Many communities are subject to harsh and manifested hatred but, somehow, it is always the Jewish community that measures statistically how unlovable the Jews are. Not the Portuguese, not the Afghans, not the Albans, not the Iranians or the Colombians. It is the Jewish leaders who choose once a month to shove in our faces the ‘numbers’ that reveal that anti Semitism is on the rise. I believe that this happens for a reason.

Read more

Israel Is Stealing and Murdering Its Way Through Palestine

Paul Craig Roberts 
RINF Alternative News

Readers are asking for my take on the Israel-Gaza situation, and, believe it or not, Oxford University’s famous debating society, the Oxford Union, invited me to debate the issue.

I replied to the Oxford Union that I was unprepared to take responsibility for the Palestinians without undergoing the extensive preparation that an Oxford Union debate deserves and requires. Unless things have changed since my time at Oxford, one prevails in a Union debate by anticipating every argument of one’s opponent and smashing the arguments with humor and wit. Facts seldom, if ever, carry the day, and sometimes not even wit and humor if the audience is already committed to the outcome by the prevailing propaganda. There is no time or energy in my overfull schedule for such preparation plus time away and jet lag.

Moreover, I am not an expert on Israel’s conquest and occupation of Palestine. I know more than most people. I was rescued from Zionist propaganda by Israeli historians, such as Ilan Pappe, by Jewish intellectuals, such as Noam Chomsky and Norman Finkelstein, by documentary film makers, such as John Pilger, by Israeli journalists such as Uri Avnery and the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, and by an Israeli houseguest who is an Israeli member of an Israeli peace group that opposes Israeli destruction of Palestinian homes, villages, and orchards in order to build apartment blocks for settlers.

There is only one take on the current Israeli slaughter of Palestinians, which Netanyahu, the demonic Israeli leader, declares will be a “protracted campaign” this time. We are witnessing yet again Israeli war crimes that are supported by the Great Moral West that is so concerned about the deaths of 290 passengers on MH-17 that they are about to drive the world to a major war, while Palestinian casualties pile up so fast that they are out of date by the time you put the numbers in a column. So far more than 1,200 deaths, with injuries to 2,000 children, 1,170 women, and 257 elderly.

Read more