Sweden's hatred for Israel boils to the surface...

Sweden's Refusal
to Condemn Organ Libel is Bogus

by Alan M. Dershowitz

Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, Harvard Law School

Posted: 25 Aug 2009 03:58 PM PDT

The Swedish foreign minister, Carl Bildt, has refused to condemn a “blood libel” published by one of Sweden’s leading newspapers, Aftonbladet. The article outrageously claims that Jewish soldiers in Israel killed Palestinians in order to harvest their organs. The writer of the article, Donald Bostrom has acknowledged, according to the New York Times, that “he has no idea whether the accusations are true.” Yet a widely-read Swedish newspaper was prepared to publish this undocumented and highly volatile accusation, without requiring its author to present any credible evidence.

This false accusation is reminiscent of the medieval blood libels that falsely accused Jews of killing Christian children in order to use their blood for religious rituals.

Not only has foreign minister Bildt refused to issue to a personal condemnation of the current “organ libel,” his foreign ministry explicitly disavowed the denunciation that was issued by Sweden’s Ambassador to Israel, who had called the article “shocking and appalling.” In a self-righteous statement, Mr. Bildt claimed that condemnation of the article would be inappropriate because freedom of expression is a part of the Swedish Constitution.

This is a bogus and ignorant argument, as anyone who understands freedom of speech will attest. I have devoted much of my life to defending freedom of speech and consider myself something of an expert on the matter. Nobody is talking about censoring the Swedish press or imprisoning the writer of the absurd article. What we are talking about is expanding the marketplace of ideas to include a completely warranted condemnation of sloppy journalism and outrageous accusations that foment an already increasing anti-Semitism in Sweden. Freedom of speech is based on an open and vibrant marketplace of ideas. No journalist is immune from criticism for bigotry and defamation, even from high ranking government officials.

Recall that virtually every government official in Europe went out of their way to condemn the depiction of perfectly innocent cartoons that offended some Muslims by portraying Mohammed. (More recently, the Yale Press withdrew these cartoons and other classic art depicting Mohammed out of fear of violent reaction.) Without getting into the business of comparative offensiveness, no reasonable person could argue that depicting a long-dead religious figure comes anywhere close to falsely accusing contemporary Jews of murdering innocent Palestinians to steal their organs.

The reality is that the Swedish government, long known for its cowardice, simply does not want to get into a fight with the Muslim world, much as it didn’t want to get into a fight with the Nazi’s during the Second World War. Sweden is perfectly willing to sell out the Jews in the name of neutrality, or in this case, in the false name of freedom of expression. Its silence is beneath contempt.

I am offended by Sweden’s craven complicity with evil not only as a Jew, but also as a strong defender of freedom of speech. Freedom of speech carries with it certain obligations as well. One of those is to condemn false speech. The best answer to false speech is not censorship, it is truthfulness. By remaining silent in the face of the bigoted falsities contained in the Aftonbladet article, the Swedish foreign minister inevitably creates the impression that he sympathizes with the writer, and perhaps even with his conclusions. Mr. Bildt, too, has freedom of speech, which he has exercised on many occasions. By choosing not to exercise it on this occasion—or even worse, by exercising it to criticize the Swedish Ambassador to Israel for her condemnation of the article—Bildt becomes a facilitator of bigotry. He should be ashamed of himself. His country should be ashamed of him. And if his country is not ashamed of him, then every decent person in the world should be ashamed of Sweden.

Silence in the face of evil is not an option. As Edmund Burke reminded us many years ago: “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” To that I may add, “Or say nothing.”

Attacks on Jews and Jewish Property Increasing in S. America

Jews in S. America Increasingly Uneasy

Government and Media Seen Fostering Anti-Semitism in Venezuela, Elsewhere

"We are blaming the incendiary rhetoric of government officials and media," says Miguel Truzman, at the synagogue vandalized Jan. 30. (By Juan Forero -- The Washington Post)
CARACAS, Venezuela, Feb. 7 -- Jewish leaders said it had never before happened in Venezuela: a break-in with anti-Jewish intent at one of the city's most prominent synagogues. A dozen armed men overpowered guards, spray-painted office walls with anti-Semitic insults, desecrated historic Torah scrolls and made off with computers containing personal information on congregants.

President Hugo Chávez condemned the Jan. 30 attack, which has shaken the country's political establishment. But Jewish leaders, supported by Israeli and U.S. officials, have said the populist government's often incendiary rhetoric toward the Jewish state, coupled with rising anti-Semitic diatribes in pro-government media, has helped foster a climate of intolerance that might have prompted assailants to target the Tiferet Israel synagogue.

Anger at Israel's recent military strikes in the Gaza Strip against the Islamist group Hamas have sparked demonstrations here and in two countries closely allied with Venezuela: Bolivia and Argentina.

But Jews in these countries are concerned about the growing anti-Semitic tone of the protesters, who frequently equate Israel with Nazi Germany, a theme increasingly evident on placards that juxtapose the Star of David with the swastika and in some public pronouncements.

In Argentina -- which has the largest Jewish population in Latin America, about 250,000-strong -- Jewish leaders describe a tense climate in which swastikas have been painted on Jewish schools, and graffiti demanding that Jews leave the country have been scrawled on walls. Protests have taken place at the Israeli Embassy, and demonstrators have also gathered in front of the InterContinental Hotel, which is owned by a prominent Argentine Jewish businessman, Eduardo Elsztain.

"It has created a climate of worry, a climate of terror," said Julio Schlosser, secretary general of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association, whose building was destroyed by a bombing in 1994 that killed 85 people. Prosecutors have accused the Iranian government and the Lebanese Hezbollah movement in the attack.

In Bolivia, where President Evo Morales expelled the Israeli ambassador over the Gaza war, residents have held peaceful protests in several cities. But with the demonstrations have also come troubling signs of anti-Semitism. In the Plaza Israel in the capital of La Paz, for instance, vandals removed a large Star of David from a monument and spray-painted "plaza palestina" on it.

"I think it is the worst that we have seen it in all the years," said Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League in New York, adding that outside of the Middle East, anti-Semitism has been most intense in Latin America. "There is no longer even an effort to differentiate between criticism of Israel and criticism of the Jewish people."

In Venezuela, Jewish leaders say they have felt harassed under the Chávez government and anxious about Venezuela's tightening alliance with Iran, whose president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has called for Israel's destruction.

In December 2007, authorities in Caracas raided the Jewish community's social club, searching for guns, which were not found. Then last month, tear gas was tossed inside Tiferet Israel's compound, and anti-Semitic messages were spray-painted on the outer walls.

A prominent rabbi reported being threatened by men who addressed him as "Jew." He was whisked away to safety by a cabdriver who witnessed the confrontation, said Michael Truzman, a lawyer for the Confederation of Israelite Associations of Venezuela, a group representing the Jewish community. He and other leaders put the blame squarely on the president, who aside from controlling all levers of official power in the country also directs Venezuela's formidable state media apparatus.

"We are blaming the incendiary rhetoric of government officials and media," Truzman said. "The language used by the president and high government officials and different personalities in the media has provoked a campaign that has led to hate against a minority community."

After breaking relations with Israel over Gaza and expelling the ambassador and six other Israeli diplomats, Chávez gave a series of speeches in which he called Israel's government "the assassin arm of the United States" that is carrying out "a genocidal policy." Chávez urged Venezuela's Jewish community to "speak out" against the Gaza strikes. "Don't you the Jews reject the Holocaust?" he said. "Isn't that what we're seeing?"

Even more troubling to Jewish leaders has been commentary in the state press and on such Web sites as Aporrea, which is closely linked to the government. Pro-government pundits have waxed on about Jewish control of U.S. foreign policy and banks and offered conspiracy theories about the Holocaust ("Hitler's associates were Jewish," one commentator said last year on state television).

One commentator on Aporrea called on Venezuelans to boycott companies owned by Jews and "publicly challenge every Jew that you find in the street."

At first, the Venezuelan government suggested that opposition figures might have carried out the attack on the synagogue to cast blame on the government ahead of a referendum next Sunday. In that election, the government is asking residents to vote for a constitutional amendment that would allow Chávez to run for office an indefinite number of times.

"All this is part of a great lie that is trying to be built against Venezuela," Foreign Minister Nicolás Maduro said in the past week. Five days after the attack, Maduro and Communications Minister Jesse Chacón met with Jewish leaders and promised an investigation.

"Why do they have to blame me for everything?" Chávez said Friday. "They attacked the synagogue, and we condemned the act and we're investigating."
On Thursday in Caracas, Jews gathered outside the synagogue for a solemn ceremony of speeches and prayer.

Suddenly, as Rabbi Isaac Cohen was to speak, a bus carrying the president's supporters, in their trademark red T-shirts, passed. The message, amplified by loudspeakers, was simple: "The United States and Israel, it is they who are spreading terror in Arab countries and in the world."

The crowd quickly responded by holding up their Venezuelan identity cards and singing the national anthem.

Minutes later, Andres Gordan, a Romanian-born Jew who survived the Holocaust, said he felt "sad, very sad." Venezuela had been a refuge for him, he said, a country tolerant of his religion.

"It's disappointing that this can happen in 2009, when the whole world knows the history," he said. "Here, we found a paradise -- until now."
Partlow reported from Buenos Aires. Special correspondent Andres Schipani in La Paz, Bolivia, contributed to this report.

The DANGER Is Real - Consider Aliyah Sooner than Later!

Blogmaster’s Observations: As this Blog is maintained for the benefit of my Jewish Brothers and Sisters, the information published here is for their benefit directly, and for the edification of all who take the time to read the information here. That being said, it is obvious to me that the return of anti-Semitism is not only growing in unprecedented proportions not seen since the nazi scourge, it is also plain to be seen that it is being tolerated and even encouraged by Western Governments heretofore believed to be intolerant of such despicable treatment of their citizens. It is therefore, in my opinion, time now for all of us to seriously consider Aliyah (moving to the only country in the world where we can truly call home). We who live in the Diaspora are on borrowed time. We are guests in foreign lands and our presence here continues to provide our enemies with a target for blaming us for all of the ills in the world. Soon mild violence will turn to blood lust and unabashed terror and violence directed against us. Make Aliyah while you still can.

The Jihad Against Britain's Jews

Friday, 6th February 2009

I am hearing ever more alarming accounts of the deepening attrition against British Jews in the wake of the incitement against Israel provoked by the war in Gaza. In addition to the record number of attacks upon Jewish individuals and institutions and murderous incitement displayed on the anti-Israel demonstrations and riots as reported by the Community Security Trust, Jewish parents report that their children – some as young as eight – are now running a gauntlet of attack from their Muslim classmates at school who accuse them of ‘killing Palestinian children’. Comments by adults about ‘Jews controlling all the money/the media/the BBC’ (yes, really! All because it allowed Israel’s spokesman to put the case for Israel from time to time) are now commonplace in both private and public discourse. Today’s Jewish Chronicle reports that a 12 year-old Birmingham schoolgirl was terrorised by a mob of 20 youths chanting ‘Kill all Jews’ and ‘Death to Jews’ on her way home from school last week:

She said: ‘One of my friends said an Asian girl from the year above asked her why she was talking to me because I am Jewish. I asked the girl in a friendly manner if she had a problem with me being Jewish. She said “yeah, I do”. I managed to punch her before she hit me but then she grabbed me by the hair and swung me around shouting “f****** Jews, I hate Jews”. But then another Asian girl rounded up a whole gang. They were all in school uniform and they came running towards me shouting “death to Jews” and “kill all Jews.”’

A reader has sent me the following account of what happened to him when, travelling on the Tube in London, he started to read a copy of The Case for Israel by Alan Dershowitz:
After a time, I became aware that a man sitting diagonally in front of me near the doors at the end of the carriage was looking a bit agitated and had a disgruntled expression on his face. However, he didn't meet my eye, so I thought nothing more of it and continued reading as before...When the train reached St Paul's, the man I had noticed stood up to get off. But instead of leaving by the end doors, he made to pass me. In the process of doing so, he deliberately shoved into me and made to crush me against the side of the carriage and the passengers sitting behind me. Despite already knowing exactly what had actuated this behaviour, I asked the question anyway - and received the following response: ‘You shouldn't be reading that, you f***ing [indecipherable].’...The whole confrontation had taken place in the time it took for the tube doors to wheeze open and shut.

Other than in the Jewish press, such incidents are barely being reported. Last week, for example, there was virtually no coverage of the violent demonstration organised by the Stop the War coalition which prevented the deputy commander of Israel’s Gaza operation from speaking at London’s Jewish student centre, Hillel House, when a crowd of about 60-80 students attempted to storm the building.

One of the most troubling developments is the way in which the universities have become an extension of the Middle East conflict, with a simulacrum of the aggression, intimidation and violence from which Israel is under attack by the Arabs being directed at Jewish students on British campuses, who now routinely run a gauntlet of intimidation and abuse from Arab and Muslim students. But even more worryingly, some universities are spinelessly choosing to give in to such bullying.

Throughout last week, after the cease-fire was declared in Gaza, there was a series of anti-Israel sit-ins and demonstrations organised by the STWC at some 17 universities: in London at the School of Oriental and African Studies, the London School of Economics, Queen Mary College and King’s College, as well as at Bradford, Sheffield Hallam, Warwick, Leeds, Oxford, Cambridge, Sussex, Essex, Nottingham, Birmingham, Manchester, Manchester Metropolitan and Strathclyde. Some of these protests led to criminal damage and forced the universities to pay thousands of pounds to deal with the disruption, rearrange lectures, hire extra security guards and repair the damage.
The demonstrators took control of lecture halls and made a series of demands: that the universities should issue a statement condemning Israel’s actions in Gaza; offer scholarships to Palestinian students; send surplus educational materials to help rebuild Gaza (presumably its Islamic University, said by Israel to be a fount of terror); dedicate some of their time to fund-raising for Gaza; and take no action against the demonstrators.

Some of these universities responded robustly to such disorder and intimidation. Manchester Metropolitan, Birmingham, Nottingham and, after some delay, Leeds and Cambridge reportedly refused to accept any of these demands. At Nottingham and Sheffield Hallam, the demonstrators were forcibly evicted.

But the LSE, King’s College London, SOAS, Bradford, Strathclyde and Oxford reportedly gave in to some or all of these demands. According to the JC, the LSE agreed to waive application fees for Gaza and West Bank students ‘directly affected by the conflict’, while Bradford

agreed to investigate the ‘ethical background’ of food and drink served on campus, and promised to ‘explore the feasibility of a twinning link with the Islamic University of Gaza’.

Strathclyde agreed among other things to cancel a contract with an Israeli water-cooler company. Oxford – which fined each demonstrator the princely sum of £20 – nevertheless started negotiations with them with indecent haste, and a mere few hours later had agreed to pretty well everything. In a craven letter to colleagues the Vice-Chancellor, John Hood, having stated thatunlawful action of this kind cannot be condoned proceeded to reward it by giving the perpetrators what they had demanded.

The Oxford demonstrators also demanded that the title of the series of lectures on ‘world peace’ at Balliol, recently inaugurated by Israeli President Shimon Peres and named in his honour, be changed; the Senior Proctor, Professor Donald Fraser -- who oversees disciplinary matters and who recommended ‘a relatively lenient course of action against the demonstrators ‘-- duly wrote to Balliol drawing its attention to the students’ concerns.

Thus the trahison des clercs as they crumble in the face of criminality, violence and intimidation.

And so now at British universities --which should be the most protected of all environments for free discourse and inquiry -- British Jews no longer feel safe. At Nottingham, one such student said:

The sit-in has created an atmosphere where we do not feel comfortable going into shared buildings on campus.

At King’s, another Jewish student said:

Someone from my course wrote ‘kill the Jews’ on my Facebook profile. Later he said he didn’t know I was Jewish. In public someone said to me, ‘I think all the Israelis are crazy and so are the f***ing Jews’.

And at Oxford, the JC reports:

One University Reader reportedly told a meeting that ‘within five years, Oxford will be a Jew-free zone’

and a student wrote to Professor Fraser warning that for Jewish students, the university and the city have developed a toxic atmosphere in which I and many others feel increasingly alienated and unwelcome.

Meanwhile, of course, as Sky’s Tim Marshall pointed out the other day on his blog, the government of Sri Lanka is also attempting to eradicate terrorism by a military campaign in which, according to the UN, ‘many civilians are being killed’, thousands made homeless, hundreds of thousands trapped, and to which, as food shortages grow, the government refuses to allow access to journalists. Yet there are no sit-ins on campus against the Sri Lankans, no violent riots outside its High Commission, no calls to boycott Orange Pekoe tea. As Marshall observed:

And yet somehow the lives of the 1,300 Palestinians killed by the Israelis causes far more outrage, in certain quarters, than the 2 million dead in Congo, the tens of thousands of Iraqis killed by Sunni and Shia terrorists, or the growing number of Sri Lankan dead to add to the 70,000 killed over the past 25 years (far more than the number of Palestinians and Israelis killed in the same period).

Of course – because the protests in Britain have nothing to do with humanitarian concerns for the innocent. They are part of the jihad against the Jews – and those in the universities and other parts of the establishment who are capitulating to or even endorsing this are accomplices to a great evil that is now consuming British public life.

NEW YORK ANTI SEMITISM WORSENS

SYNAGOGUES ON LONG ISLAND

AND STATIN ISLAND, NY VANDALIZED


ADL Condemns Anti-Semitic Graffiti on Long Island Synagogue
New York, NY, August 18, 2008 … The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today strongly condemned the anti-Semitic graffiti and vandalism discovered on and around a Long Island synagogue.

Over the weekend, vandals spray-painted anti-Jewish slogans on the Dix Hills Jewish Center, and spray-painted the word "JEWS" on a stop sign near the synagogue.

"We are extremely troubled by yet another malicious attack on a Jewish place of worship in our area," said Joel J. Levy, ADL New York Regional Director. "After seeing a significant increase in anti-Semitic attacks in New York in 2007, we continue to be concerned by their regular occurrence in our state, and condemn all such incidents in the strongest terms.

"We applaud Suffolk County law enforcement for addressing this incident with the seriousness and speed we have come to expect from them, and hope that the perpetrators of this anti-Semitic crime will be brought to justice."

ADL regularly assists law enforcement and communities in response to hate crimes, and has been in contact with the Suffolk County Police Department regarding the incident. The League has also reached out to the Dix Hills synagogue to offer its resources and expertise.

This latest incident comes on the heels of a synagogue vandalism in Staten Island, where two spray-painted swastikas were discovered. There is no indication that the two incidents are connected.