Tag Archives: Antisemitism

Fools Rush In…

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There is an old song, “Fools Rush In (Where Angels Fear To Tread).” I feel as if I am about to be a fool by writing the following article.

Paula Deen admitted under oath recently that she used a word that is politically incorrect (it is also a racial slur, demeaning, and should never be used). However, she is under attack because the word is considered the ultimate sin in political correctness. I am not going to mention that the word is used in rap music and movies all the time and no one seems to care. But Paula stepped on the toes of political correctness. As a result of admitting to the use of this word (and possibly for telling inappropriate jokes at one of her businesses), the Paula Deen empire is collapsing. Walmart, Target, and the Food Channel are cutting their ties with her. She is no longer considered a “good person,” something our society seems to think is very important. I haven’t heard anyone comment (it may have happened, but I haven’t heard it) on how many people who were offended by her use of a politically incorrect word will lose their jobs as a result of what is happening. How many restaurant workers will be laid off because of reduced business? How many television production people will be out of work because her show is no longer being produced? What will be the impact on commerce in the State of Georgia. I’m not being funny–I suspect her enterprises paid serious taxes to the State of Georgia in various forms.

With all that on the table, I want to bring you back to a previous time in America. America has been, at various times in its history, a racist nation. I believe we are doing better now, but I also believe what is happening to Paula Deen is not helpful to the country.

PBS posted an article about Anti-Semitism in the 1930’s on their website which states:

By 1939, the anti-Semites had two causes: keeping America out of the European war, and keeping European Jews out of America. And they had two famous men in their ranks. Henry Ford was a true rags-to-riches hero. He was also an anti-Semite, who railed incessantly against “the Jewish plan to control the world” in his newspaper, the Dearborn Independent (circulation allegedly 700,000), which Ford dealerships distributed free of charge. A collection of Ford’s ghostwritten columns was published as The International Jew: The World’s Foremost Problem — a best-seller in Germany.

The other famous American was Charles Lindbergh, who may have been an anti-Semite, but most certainly claimed publicly that Jews were trying, partly through their ownership of the media, to draw America into the war. Lindbergh represented America First, the powerful isolationist organization that, in fact, ejected Henry Ford for his anti-Semitic views. (See The Isolationist Movement.)

Henry Ford was also know to be distrustful of black people–that is why he hired immigrants from the Middle East to work in his manufacturing plants in the mid-West. That immigration during the early days of Ford Motor Company is one reason for the large concentration of Muslims in Michigan. I am sorry that Henry Ford was a racist, but I still love my Ford Mustang!

So what is the point? Racism and racists will always be with us–whether they are rightfully or wrongfully charged with racism. I believe that in most ways we are a more integrated society than we were fifty years ago, but I also believe that there are people among us whose livelihood depends on keeping the illusion of racism alive. Paula Deen needs to be allowed to continue her successful business ways without being condemned for reflecting the views of the time and place where she was raised. There is a true double standard here–the word she used is used routinely in rap music and movies. The politically correct police need to take a deep breath and get over themselves.

 

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Why Are We Sending Advanced Fighter Planes To These People?

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PJ Media posted a story yesterday about recent remarks made by Egyptian President Morsi.

The article reports:

It’s no news that Mohamed Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood is an extremist, anti-Semitic monstrosity. The disgusting eruption of Jew-hatred from Morsi in 2010 is nothing new. What is new is the fact that the Obama administration and the New York Times are shocked — shocked — to discover the Morsi is a rabid Jew-hater. The Times wrote today:

Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi’s scurrilous comments from nearly three years ago about Zionists and Jews, which just came to light, have raised serious doubts about whether he can ever be the force for moderation and stability that is needed. That kind of pure bigotry is unacceptable anywhere, anytime. But it is even more offensive in public discourse, coming from someone who became the president of a major country.

The sad truth is that defaming Jews is an all too standard feature of Egyptian, and Arab, discourse. Teaching children to hate and dehumanizing one’s adversaries is just the kind of twisted mentality that fuels the conflicts that torment the region.

CBN News reported today:

After coming under fire from the Obama administration, Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi is trying to explain away his racist remarks about Jews in a 2010 speech.

Morsi said his comments calling Jews “bloodsuckers and “descendants of apes and pigs” were aimed at Israeli policies and taken out of context.

I guess I’m a little confused. How can those remarks be seen as ‘taken out of context?’ Anti-Semitism from President Morsi is in no way a surprise, but the question is, “Do we want to sell advanced weaponry to a country that is likely to use them against a country (Israel) that is our best ally in the region?” The other thing to understand here is that Israel may be the first target, but the United States will be the second target.

As one of my facebook friends posted–“It’s time to stop giving foreign aid to countries that hate us and allow them to hate us for free.” I think that is a really good idea.

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The Values Of Our Leaders

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Rahm Emanuel left his job in Washington working for President Obama to run for mayor of Chicago. He won the election and is now the mayor of Chicago. The relationship between Mayor Emanuel and President Obama was considered to be a close one of political allies and friends.

The Weekly Standard is reporting today that Mayor Emanuel is planning to block Chick-fil-A from opening its restaurants in Chicago.

The article at the Weekly Standard quotes Mayor Emanuel:

“Chick-fil-A’s values are not Chicago values. They’re not respectful of our residents, our neighbors and our family members. And if you’re gonna be part of the Chicago community, you should reflect Chicago values,”

The values Mayor Emanuel is referring to are the Bible-based Christian values of the owner of Chick-fil-A. The owner does not support gay marriage. Evidently, if you speak out about your Christian beliefs, you are not welcome to do business in Chicago.

But what are Chicago values? At the same time Mayor Emanuel was attempting to block Chick-fil-A from doing business in Chicago, he was welcoming Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan

Some quotes from Louis Farrakhan:

Many of the Jews who owned the homes, the apartments in the black community, we considered them bloodsuckers because they took from our community and built their community but didn’t offer anything back to our community.

The Jews don’t like Farrakhan, so they call me Hitler. Well, that’s a good name. Hitler was a very great man.

Why has Louis Farrakhan come to Chicago? The article reports:

Ignoring Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan’s history of anti-Semitic remarks, Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Wednesday welcomed the army of men dispatched to the streets by Farrakhan to stop the violence in Chicago neighborhoods.

And Mussolini kept the trains running on time.

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A Very Subtle Form Of Anti-Semitism

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CNS News is reporting today that a German court has ruled that circumcising male children for religious reasons constitutes grievous bodily harm and is a crime, regardless of parental consent. Circumcision is part of the Jewish tradition, having roots in the Book of Genesis.

Genesis 17:10 states: “10 This is my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee; Every man child among you shall be circumcised.”

The article reports:

“There is no way of persuading politically-correct modern liberal thinkers of the role of Jewish values, but they missed the latest statistical research data,” Ehrlich (Prof. Fred Ehrlich of the School of Public Health and Community Medicine at the University of New South Wales in Australia) said.

Over the past decade or so, studies have found significant health benefits from the practice, including a lower risk of contracting HIV-AIDS among heterosexual men, lower rates of infection from the virus that causes cervical cancer among the wives or partners of circumcised men, and most recently, a slightly lower risk of developing prostate cancer.

“Circumcision is akin to vaccination,” Ehrlich said. “It has significant benefits in preventing urinary infection in infants, with its small but not negligible mortality rate, in preventing AIDS in adulthood, in preventing penile cancer as well as cervical cancer in female partners.

“There is no doubt about the benefit of circumcision, so all we need to do is find out the best time.”

Circumcision in America is common in a male children of all religious faiths. In Europe, it is more common among Jewish males. This decision represents a very subtle form of anti-Semitism.

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What Are Our Children Learning In College ?

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Last night in Stoughton, Massachusetts, I had the privilege of hearing a presentation by Professor Tammi Rossman-Benjamin of the University of California Santa Cruz. The presentation was entitled, “Combating anti-Semitism on University Campuses and Beyond.” Over the years I have been aware of what I thought were occasional incidents of anti-Semitism at American universities, but I had no idea how widespread the problem was or what the focus of the anti-Semitism is.

Professor Rossman-Benjamin pointed out that there are two basic forms of anti-Semitism on our college campuses–the bullying, intimidation, and name-calling directed at individual Jewish students and the attempt (often supported by professors) to delegitimize Israel. The second sometimes takes the form of petitions that universities divest themselves of any investments in Israel.

One of the sources of the anti-Israel and anti-Jewish sentiment is a group called the Muslim Students’ Association (a group with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood).

Last night was an eye-opening evening. As someone whose children graduated from college more than ten years ago, I am not aware of what is going on at our colleges. This was an education.

One of the things not mentioned directly last night, but that to me is a representation of where our educational system (and the concept of respecting all people) has gone, is a YouTube video taken during a speech given by David Horowitz during “Israel Apartheid Week at the University of California San Diego in 2010. Horowitz was hosted by Young Americans for Freedom. Please watch the entire video and listen to the question at the end:

 

This should not be happening on our college campuses. 

 

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Wednesday Night In Stoughton Massachusetts

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Ahavath Torah Congregation
1179 Central Street

 Ahavath Torah Congregation’s Hausman Memorial Speakers’ Series Presents:

 
Combating anti-Semitism on University Campuses and Beyond
 
Tammi Rossman-Benjamin

Wednesday June 20, 7:30 PM


Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, a lecturer at the UC/Santa Cruz, is changing the conditions throughout the UC system almost single-handedly with her force of intellect and courage. She has written articles about academic anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism and lectured widely on these developments and on the growing threat to the safety of Jewish students on college campuses.
  • In July 2010, she co-organized a 2-week scholarly workshop entitled “Contemporary Antisemitism in Higher Education” at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies in Washington D.C., and with Kenneth Marcus, the workshop’s other coorganizer, she is editing a book of scholarly articles on campus-based anti-Semitism.
  • Along with Dr. Leila Beckwith, she is the co-founder of the AMCHA Initiative, a grass-roots advocacy coalition dedicated to protecting Jewish students on university campuses within California. She and Dr.Beckwith also recently co-founded the Investigative Taskforce on Campus Antisemitism, an organization whose mission is to investigate and report incidents of antisemitism that occur in institutions of higher education in the United States, to document their effect on students, faculty, and staff, and to offer recommendations for addressing the problem on each campus investigated.
  • In 2009, she filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, alleging a hostile environment for Jewish students on her campus, and in March 2011 a federal investigation of her complaint was launched and is still pending.
 
$10 suggested donation for each event
 
Bring your electric bill and sign up for Just Energy by Momentis and come as our guest for that program.
 
For further information email office@atorah.org
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Free Speech At American Universities

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On Friday, a story was posted at CBN.com about recent events at Portland State University. Erick Stakelbeck is scheduled to speak at the Portland State University chapter of Christians United for Israel (CUFI) on Monday night, May 14th. His topic is to be the latest developments in the Middle East and the increasing threats to Israel.

The picture below shows what has happened to some of the posters the CUFI put up to publicize the event (which is open to the public):

This is just inexcusable.

This article reports:

Portland State University administrators and campus police have been notified about the threats and I’m fully expecting that they will launch an investigation and have ample security on hand for Monday night’s event. If they do not, and if they allow anti-Semitic radicals to disrupt my speech, run amok during the Q and A, or intimidate others in the audience (click here to watch a particularly egregious 2010 example from UC Irvine) you will surely hear about it in this space come Tuesday morning.

There have been many recent examples of anti-Semitism on college campuses in America. David Horowitz routinely reports on such incidents at his website, FrontPageMag.com. Many of the Arab studies programs at American colleges are funded by countries or organizations that have strong ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. Because that’s where the money comes from, anti-Semitism and basic tolerance of Sharia Law is being taught at American colleges. We are brainwashing our smartest young people. If you have a child in college or are sending a child to college in the near future, please pay close attention to what they are learning. Our survival as a free society depends on what our children are being taught.

 

 

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The Roots Of Islamic Antisemitism

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Andrew G. Bostom spoke tonight in Stoughton, Massachusetts, on the roots of Islamic Antisemitism. He described his developing interest in the subject after the events on September 11, 2001. He then chronicled the history of Islamic Antisemitism going back to the beginnings of the Muslim religion. In his book, The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism, Mr. Bostom gives a detailed account of the roots and development of Antisemitism within Islam.

Mr. Bostom’s lecture was summed up in a story he told about an experiment he did which showed the misconceptions most scholars, theologians, and journalists have about Antisemitism. He sent e-mails to a variety of academics, scholars, journalists, etc., asking the following question:

“In your opinion, would this quote (below) exemplify racial, or at least ethnic Antisemitism? Moreover would you please hazard a guess as to where and when it was written, based upon the contents?” Here is the quote:

Our people [the Muslims] observing thus the occupations of the Jews and the Christians concluded that the religion of the Jews must compare unfavorably as do their professions, and that their unbelief must be the foulest of all, since they are the filthiest of all nations. Why the Christians, ugly as they are, are physically less repulsive than the Jews may be explained by the fact that the Jews, by not intermarrying, have intensified the offensiveness of their features. Exotic elements have not mingled with them; neither have males of alien races had intercourse with their women, nor have their men cohabited with females of a foreign stock. The Jewish race therefore has been denied high mental qualities, sound physique, and superior lactation. The same results obtain when horses, camels, donkeys, and pigeons are inbred.
 
He read some of the answers he got back:
 
“Of course it’s Antisemitism of the most vile racist stripe-which leads me to think it likely dates from the 19th century, at the earliest.  It also sounds like the sort of thing one would read in the  Antisemitic popular literature of the Edwardian period.  So, my guess would be somewhere between 1830 and the 1920s.”  
“I imagine this was written under the influence of modern theories of racial inferiority.”
“If I had to hazard a guess, I would say this is from a sermon in a Gaza mosque this past Friday..”
“Could be any mosque in the Muslim world, or Nazi Germany if it weren’t for the first line. Definitely racial…”
“How about current Wahhabi establishment?”
“I have no idea who said it but I’ll hazard a guess just for sport: the Mufti of Jerusalem, circa 1940?”
“Probably last week from one of the mullahs in the UK.”
“Yes, racist to the point of being Nazi-like. I would say, the Mufti of Jerusalem or some other Islamofascist, or maybe contemporary Wahhabi.”
“…it’s the usual (modern) boiler plate from the Middle East.”
 
Unfortunately, the quote represents much more history than the responders gave it credit for.
 
Mr. Bostom wrote an article for the American Thinker in May 2008 in which he explains:
 
The quote in fact derives from a remarkable essay by the polymath Arabic writer al-Jahiz (d. 869), illustrating the anti-Jewish attitudes prevalent within an important early Islamic society, and composed over a millennium earlier than suspected by these interlocutors. It is also worth noting that al-Jahiz (described as a “skeptic,” who harbored “indifferent views toward religion in general”) included sociological observations-the quote cited above-which reveal the interface between indigenous ethnic/racial discriminatory, and Islamic religious (i.e., the essay’s major emphasis, described below) attitudes towards Jews, expressed a thousand years before any secular Western European Antisemitic ideologies would be exported to the Muslim Near East
 
The bottom line in the information tonight was that Antisemitism among Muslims is not a new thing. It goes back to the roots of Islam and is taught to the children as part of the Koran. The only way to end Antisemitism in Islam is to stop teaching the Koran to Muslim children, and I don’t think that is likely to happen.
 
 
 
 
 

 

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Highland Park And New Brunswick Were Targeted By Anti-Semites On Tuesday Night

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Arutz Sheva today that at least five Jewish-owned businesses in Highland Park, New Jersey, were attacked on Tuesday night.

The article reports:

Vandals hurled bricks through the plate glass windows of a kosher restaurant, a kosher pizza shop, two Judaica stores, and a Jewish-owned hardware store.

At least three other Jewish-owned business in nearby New Brunswich were also targeted. Tuesday was the anniversary of the 1947 United Nations Partition Vote to create the Jewish state of Israel.

Local police issued the following statement:

“We would also like to briefly address the fear that these are acts motivated by anti-Semitism or that these are bias crimes,” the statement said. “The Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office has been notified, but it is too soon to reach a conclusion.

“All of our officers are aware of the sensitivity of this situation and we will make every effort with patrols and surveillance to keep everyone safe. We would like to encourage you to communicate with your congregants and urge them to avoid speculation which could lead to unnecessary anxiety.”

Anyone care to guess if that statement would have been made had the victims been anything other than Jewish?

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Occupy Wall Street Branches Out

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A Grad rocket hit in Beer Sheba during the 200...

Image via Wikipedia

Israel National News is reporting today that a group of thugs attempted to barge into the Israeli Consulate in Boston to protest Israel’s seizure of the Canadian-Irish flotilla ships that attempted to sail to Gaza.  I would like to remind anyone who agrees with these thugs that the naval blockade of Gaza has been declared legal under international law.

According to the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs:

A maritime blockade is in effect off the coast of Gaza. Such blockade has been imposed, as Israel is currently in a state of armed conflict with the Hamas regime that controls Gaza, which has repeatedly bombed civilian targets in Israel with weapons that have been  smuggled into Gaza via the sea.

Considering the number of rocket attacks on Israel that have originated in Gaza, this makes perfect sense.

The Israel National News further reports:

The activists were “spillovers” from the Occupy Boston protests, one of many Occupy Wall Street protests, some with anti- Semitic undertones, being held in the U.S. demanding social justice. At least three people have been arrested on drug charges in the protests over the past several days, and police report numerous knife fights between homeless individuals who are participating in the protests. Police also report a significant rise in vandalism in downtown Boston.

If Occupy Wall Street does actually represent more than 5 percent of the American population, we are in serious trouble.

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When Politics Trumps Responsibility

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The Jews are the canary in the coal mine. Whatever cruelty is done to the Jews will be eventually aimed at the rest of us. That is the reason we need to pay attention when anti-Semitism is expressed. Usually the Anti-Defamation League (ADF) handles that job very well. However, they are currently ignoring what is in front of them because it would interfere with their politics.

Yesterday Big Government pointed out that there have been a number of anti-Semitic statements and signs at the various Occupy Wall Street protests and the ADF has been strangely silent.

This is one picture from one of the protests. The picture is from Pajamas Media.

One quote from a protester (cited in the Big Government article) was posted on October 12 at Reason.tv.  Patricia McAllister, a self-described employee of the Los Angeles Unified School District, and a demonstrator at Occupy LA:

“I think that, uh, the Zionist Jews who are running these big banks, and our Federal Reserve, which is not run by the federal government–they need to be run out of this country.”

This is not acceptable and Americans need to speak out against this kind of anti-Semitism. If this sort of statement were directed at certain other favored groups (pick your group), there would be outrage, charges of hate speech, and charges of whateverphobia the liberal press thought might apply. We need to protest the double standard that is at work here.

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Israel And Palestine Made Simple

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A Field of Flowers and Mount Tabor

Image by Oregon State University Archives via Flickr

The struggle of the Jewish people to live in peace has gone on since the days of Ester. AntiSemitism seems to be something that shows up in the world periodically, and it is generally followed by bad things. Sometimes when we look at the events of the moment, we forget the history of these events.

Yesterday, Scott Johnson at Power Line posted a cartoon-style video detailing the history of the State of Israel and its negotiations with the local Arabs. The video is about ll minutes long, but it is worth watching to the end. There are a lot of facts in it that are currently not mentioned in the discussion at the United Nations.

 

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Legitimizing AntiSemitism

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Street in Jerusalem Old City

Image via Wikipedia

I expect that sometime in the next few days, the United Nations will vote on whether or not to recognize a Palestinian State. There has never been a state of Palestine, although Jordan was originally established as a home for Palestinians, but the United Nations will be voting on one shortly. What would that state look like?

Haaretz reported on September 14th that:

Answering a question about the legal status of a Jewish minority in the future state, Areikat apprently rejected the issue, saying: “I believe, I still believe that as a first step we need to be totally separated,” adding “I think we can contemplate these issues in the future.”

“After the experience of the last 44 years, of military occupation and all the conflict and friction, I think it will be in the best interest that the two peoples should be separated,” Areikat added. 

USA Today reported on September 15th:

Habbash’s comments come after the ambassador for the Palestine Liberation Organization to the United States, Maen Areikat, said when asked Tuesday whether he could foresee a Jew being elected mayor of Ramallah, the capital of the West Bank: “I personally still believe that as a first step we need to be totally separated, and we can contemplate these issues in the future.”

Areikat, speaking at a breakfast for reporters hosted by the Christian Science Monitor, continued: “After the experience of the last 44 years of military occupation and all the conflict and friction, I think it would be in the best interest of the two people to be separated first.”

These statements have been walked back slightly, but I believe the original statements are probably the truth. I would like to remind anyone too young to remember that prior to 1967, when the Arabs controlled the Old City of Jerusalem that Christians and Jews did not have access to their holy sites. In recent years, the Jews have controlled the Old City, and the area is open to people of all faiths. It seems to me that history tells us what a Palestinian state would be like.

There seems to be an effort on the part of some Palestinians to claim that Palestine would be a peaceful, equal-opportunity state. USA Today reports:

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas have called for a secular, pluralistic Palestinian state, says Hussein Ibish of the American Task Force on Palestine, which advocates a non-militarized Palestinian state alongside Israel.

The article in USA Today further reports:

Michael Oren, the Israeli ambassador to Washington, said he read Areikat’s comments to mean a ban on Jews.

“That’s the state that the Palestinians want to declare unilaterally, without negotiations, and have recognized by the U.N.,” Oren said

I think I agree with Michael Oren. I have a hard time believing that the large number of weapons currently being smuggled into the West Bank are for peaceful purposes.

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Anti-Semitism In England

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Yesterday Scott Johnson at Power Line posted a story about protests that took place in London last Thursday when the Israeli Philharmonic, led by Zubin Mehta, participated in the annual eight-week summer season of daily orchestral classical music concerts known as the Proms. The concert by the Israeli Philharmonic was disrupted to the point that the BBC cut off its live broadcast.

The New York Times reported:

…the repeated disruption of its (the Israeli Philharmonic) concert at Royal Albert Hall in London on Thursday night by pro-Palestinian demonstrators, to the point that the BBC cut off its live broadcast and played recordings of the evening’s program instead. 

Stephen Pollard in the UK Telegraph had a slightly different take:

But Thursday night’s events can only be understood in the context of anti-Semitism. When have there been similar protests against “violations of international law and human rights”, as was chanted on Thursday, by any other country? And this in the middle of the Arab Spring, when genuine protesters for human rights are daily risking their lives in Syria against a murderous dictatorship.

If, indeed, this was a protest against the actions of the Israeli government, rather than against Jews, where have been the similar disruptions of performances by Russian, Chinese, Turkish, Iranian or any number of other nations’ musicians? What about disruptions of British national companies, in protest at British human rights abuses? To pose the question is to answer it. There’s little doubt in my mind that this was an action motivated specifically by the fact that the performers were playing in the national orchestra of the Jewish state. 

If the Jews are the canary in the coal mine, we need to pay attention–the gas is rising. As the day nears when Palestine will unilaterally declare itself a state–regardless of the fact that it has never adhered to the Oslo Accords, we can expect to see more accusations against Israel and more anti-Semitism under the guise of supporting human rights. This is the same kind of upside down logic that has been used in the past to persecute Jews. We need to our own research on what is happening rather than believing everything we see in the news.

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