| The mainstreaming of anti-semitism: Salon partners with Mondoweiss Posted: 16 Jul 2012 06:53 PM PDT Mondoweiss is not simply a far leftist site. It is not simply a hate site. Mondweiss is a virulent pusher of anti-semitic tropes. In a guest post written two years ago, Adam Levick exposed some of Mondoweiss' hate: Nazi, Soviet, and, more recently, Arab anti-Semitic caricatures often portray Jews as spiders, cockroaches, and Octopuses – dehumanizing Jews by turning them into animals that are destructive, inhuman and evil. The cartoon below, by the notorious anti-Zionist cartoonist, Carlos Latuff, was posted on the "progressive" Jewish anti-Zionist blog, Mondoweiss recently [ii] – by a frequent Mondoweiss blogger named Seham [iii] – in reference to the Gaza flotilla incident. This ugly caricature of the Jewish state manages to both employ Nazi-like anti-Semitic imagery of a beastly and monstrous Jewish collective while simultaneously asserting that the Jewish state has become the new Nazi Germany. (Note the Jewish Magen David on the Israeli flag is morphed into a swastika) Such insidious depictions of Israel and Israelis are mostly seen on extremist websites, and is a phenomenon known as Holocaust inversion [iv].
...That such a cartoon would appear on the pages of Mondoweiss [xvi], funded by The Nation Institute, [xvii]is, sadly, not particularly surprising to anyone familiar with the blog. Mondoweiss is an openly anti-Zionist Jewish blog and consistently advances, among other classical antisemitic tropes, [xviii] the argument that Jews exercise too much power over U.S. policy [xix] [xx]and that Jewish "progressive" voices on the Middle East are censored by the organized Jewish community. The viciousness and hatred towards Israel, and the state's Jewish supporters, can't be overstated. The main blogger, Philip Weiss, states that "Zionism privileges Jews and justifies oppression, and this appals me." Weiss has complained that the "suffering of Palestinians that has been perpetrated politically in large part by empowered American Jews who are all over the media and political establishment." He has openly called for a quota on Jews who work in the media. Weiss refers to Zionism as an ideology of "apartheid and ethnic cleansing." Read the whole thing. Yaacov Lozowick, historian and now head of Israel's State Archives, is not known to use hyperbole. But here is how he describes Mondoweiss: You recognize the old-fashioned antisemitic trope about the Jews who pull the strings behind the facade which hides reality. Even as I write this Weiss has posted about the 35-year friendship between Mitt Romney and Binyamin Netanyahu; I don't see how his piece can be read except as part of a conspiracy theory. Truly frightening, those Zionists, surrounding a future potential American president with their agents when he was only in his 20s.
Being against the existence of Israel isn't particularly exceptional. One of the interesting things about Mondoweiss is the tremendous amount of work they invest in their animosity. I happen to think the Saudi regime is ghastly, but I'd never spend hours every day digging up dirt on it. The Mondoweiss people do that, first by avidly seeking any remotely negative story about Israel, then by seeking the ones which aren't true, then by damning anyone who casts doubt with terms such as hasbarists, Ziobots (I assume these are part Zionists and part robots), and of course genocidists. In order to collect all that dirt they've got to pass by the occasional positive story too, but these never get linked to or even alluded too unless to demonstrate how yet another journalist has succumbed to the threat of Zionist censorship. The result is a depiction of reality which has at best a glancing relationship with the real world, but these folks aren't interested in the real world. In their world, Zionists are easily the worst group of humans, they purportedly hate all Palestinians, they enforce the most cruel policies possibly on them, they steal from-, degrade and kill Palestinians, on a daily basis. You read Mondoweiss regularly and the force of hatred towards Zionists becomes overpowering: no normal decent person could have anything but the deepest contempt for such a gang of deceitful violent criminals. As a commentor named "American" recently wrote:
The thing about the zionist is they attack even those who help them. They turned on England, calling it "worse than Hitler' because England tried to uphold the immigration quotas agreed to. They demonize the UN that created their state for them....Everyone, without exception, who has ever had anything to do them has regretted it….the US will too in the end. They are vipers who need to be decapitated. Comments at Mondoweiss are moderated, so that one could have been deleted - but wasn't. And why would it be? It merely states what is obvious to the locals. Any attempt to argue with them will either be blocked by the same moderators, or dederisively laughed off the screen. If a sane commenter has made a reasonable point which gets past the moderators, the locals will dig up a dozen spurious links to disprove it: the value of links being not their veracity, or the trustworthiness of their sources, but their usefulness to the partly line. Links which are not useful - you guessed it: they're written off as hasbara lies.
Interestingly, the Mondoweiss community not only has no interest in the lives of real Israelis, it also has no interest in the lives of real Palestinians. Their point is to hate Israel and damn it, no matter what; the possibility that there are Palestinians who live alongside Israelis, interact with them, and even could imagine living with them in peace, is a thought never contemplated. I have Palestinian staff members, colleagues and friends; none of them could remotely fit into the Mondoweiss world. The mothodology also has the odd result that according to Mondoweiss, Israelis and Palestinians are all boring cardboard figures, with none of the complexities, complications, shades of grey, frustrations and successes of real people. The very parts of the human story which make it worth following are all dropped, to be replaced by detestation (towards Israelis) and patronizing pity (towards Palestinians). Only this week, we have this description in The Atlantic: It's impossible to peer into the hearts and minds of the people who edit the site, but Mondoweiss often gives the appearance of an anti-Semitic enterprise. Site founder and editor Phil Weiss, a former writer for the American Conservative when Pat Buchanan was editor, wrote this past May, "I can justly be accused of being a conspiracy theorist because I believe in the Israel lobby theory ... certainly my theory has an explanation of the rise and influence of the neocons. They don't have a class interest but an ideological-religious one."
An April 2011 article on the site strongly implied that Mossad agents were involved in the murder of Italian activist Vittorio Arrigonni, an assertion for which there's no factual evidence. In 2011, contributor Max Ajl argued against "left-wing" condemnation of the Itamar massacre, in which attackers killed five members of a settler family, including a three-month old baby. In 2009, Jack Ross, who has contributed to the white nationalist, Holocaust-denying journal The Barnes Review,argued on Mondoweiss that "it was not the appeasement, but the internationalist hubris and bellicosity of Chamberlain which started World War II." In other words, lay off the Nazis.
One winner of Mondoweiss' recent "New Yorker parody contest" was a bizarre entry in which former Israeli Prime Minister has a teary reunion with the ghost of his long-lost father: Adolf Hitler.
Philip Weiss has found evidence of Jewish influence and Jewish perfidy in everything from NPR to the names of the buildings at Harvard University to an innocuous statement by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach. Weiss has argued that the "Jewish presence in the Establishment" imposes its own single-minded, communalistic interests upon the whole of American and British society. "Don't you see," he wrote in a post also suggesting "Zionists" were to blame for the outbreak of the Iraq war, "the vociferousness and effectiveness of the Israel lobby make this conflict Our Conflict!" Ironically, Weiss also believes that Zionism entails Jewish self-hatred. Even Hussein Ibish, hardly someone I agree with often, tweeted today that Mondoweiss was "moronic and repulsive," pointing to one egregious example. One would think that any mainstream website would think twice before openly associating themselves with what is, effectively, a hate site. Yet that is exactly what Salon did today: Salon is proud to feature content from Mondoweiss, a news website devoted to covering American foreign policy in the Middle East, and the evolving debate over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This is beyond troublesome. This is the mainstreaming of Jewish anti-semitism. Salon is one of the biggest mainstream webzines. It is outrageous that Salon is not being slammed by its own readers and supporters to immediately reverse this sickening decision. If there is anything funny about this - and this is not funny - it is that Salon's embrace of Mondoweiss directly disproves Mondoweiss' own major theme that Zionist Jews do not allow any divergent opinions to be heard in the US. 
 |
| The fake child artists of Gaza, redux Posted: 16 Jul 2012 01:03 PM PDT Last September I posted about the fake child artists of Gaza, where an "art exhibit" of drawings purportedly by Gaza kids is shown to almost certainly be drawn by adults in a faux-children's style. So it isn't art - it is slander. I just wrote an update to the post for The Algemeiner, as the exhibit has been going across the US and Canada and is now in Toronto. I include a couple of new things like the excuse they use for the kids not signing the pictures and the fact that there is now a book about the fake drawings, where Israel haters are making money off this deception. 
 |
| Monday Links by Ian Posted: 16 Jul 2012 11:30 AM PDT Israel Preparing for al-Qaeda on its Borders by Yaakov Lappin "Hamas, for its part, has no problem with al-Qaeda launching attacks on Israel from Sinai, but it does have a problem with al-Qaeda challenging its rule in Gaza. In 2009, Hamas ruthlessly enforced its jurisdiction in Gaza, sending hundreds of gunmen to the south of the Strip to put down an al-Qaeda inspired movement that challenged Hamas rule ." How Political Correctness Is Transforming British Education by Soeren Kern "British schools are increasingly dropping the Jewish Holocaust from history lessons to avoid offending Muslim pupils, according to a report entitled, Teaching Emotive and Controversial History, commissioned by the Department for Education and Skills.
British teachers are also reluctant to discuss the medieval Crusades, in which Christians fought Muslim armies for control of Jerusalem: lessons often contradict what is taught in local mosques." Egypt's Power Struggle and the Fate of Christians by Aidan Clay "Egypt's Coptic Christian minority fears that the restoration of parliament, which will grant greater power to Islamists, will be used to institute Sharia law and stifle religious freedom." Christians snub Cairo meeting with Clinton, claim US backs Islamists Monica chants taunt Clinton in Egypt Obama Advisor Visited Israel 'to Stop Iran Attack' "President Barack Obama's National Security Advisor Tom Donilon visited Israel secretly over the weekend in what one Israeli newspaper says was an attempt to convince Israel not to attack Iran's nuclear facilities." Wasserman Schultz, despite objections, to speak at suburban Philly synagogue "Similar event in Miami was canceled a month ago over concerns of political evenhandedness " Debbie Wasserman Schultz Cannot Name a Reason for Jews to Back Obama Except Abortion CIFWatch A Guardian-Baathist Alliance? Syrian gov't uses CiF essay for pro-regime propaganda Saudi Arabia considers law against insulting Islam It was all destiny "One of last surviving founders of IAF recalls mission that stopped Egypt from advancing on Tel Aviv."
"It was 4 p.m. and a jeep rushes in with Shimon Avidan, commander of the Givati Brigade,"
Lenart said. "He heard we had airplanes and said that six miles from where we were near Ashdod, there were 15,000 Egyptian soldiers and 500 vehicles and tanks stopped because Givati had blown up a bridge. But if we didn't stop them that night they would fix the bridge and be in Tel Aviv the next morning – and there would be no Israel." 
 |
| Journalist imprisoned, tortured by Hamas. Yawn. Posted: 16 Jul 2012 10:00 AM PDT Palestine Press reports about Mohamed Nimer Guenith , a freelance journalist in Gaza, who was abducted, imprisoned and tortured by Hamas. According to Guenith, ge was arrested on June 10 after his home was raided and his computer confiscated. He was asked about articles he had written that were critical of Hamas (specifically about the fuel shortage,) as well as for details on who his journalist friends were. He was beaten, punched and slapped, and forced to sleep on the ground. The next day, were subjected to investigate again and asked him about those critical of Hamas, and raises the issue of lack of fuel in the Gaza Strip, next to the same questions about his friends in the journalists 'union and his friends journalists in Egypt, and journalists who work for the Fatah movement, and during his interrogation was colleague, the journalist was beaten with' punched and slapped, forced to the wall strongly ', was detained for 12 days in a cell about a meter and a half, including a toilet, sleeps on the ground in some nights. The interrogators asked him if he was biased against Hamas because they killed his brother. They beat his feet and shaved his head, and accused him of being a Fatah journalist who is undermining the unity between Hamas and Fatah, a charge he denied. After 15 days he was released. He then made a statement that it is clear that there is a systematic policy practiced by Hamas in the Gaza Strip with the aim of gagging the media by subjecting journalists to arrest, torture and detention in harsh conditions. As far as I can tell, the UN Human Rights Council didn't bring up the issue of Hamas repression of freedoms when they visited Gaza this weekend. Perhaps it is outside of the UNHRC's mission statement to accuse anyone besides Israel of abuses. 
 |
| Iranian press says Israel will attack - America Posted: 16 Jul 2012 08:30 AM PDT One of the Western conspiracy theorists who has found a comforting home in Iranian media is Gordon Duff, who usually hangs out at that anti-semitic nutcase site Veterans Today. Last week he posted a classic on Iran's PressTV: The most likely scenario, should the Likudists in Israel find their stranglehold on that country, one held through propagandization, pouring millions into the American electoral system, much of it proceeds from drug sales, human trafficking and other areas of organized crime, some of it even America's own foreign aid to Israel, used for "pump priming," Israel is likely to try to precipitate a war on Iran by staging an attack on the US, its forces in the Persian Gulf region or on a European NATO target, most likely the London Olympic games.
There has been highly credible information that an attack on the Olympics is planned.
Additionally, Dolphin submarines supplied to Israel by Germany have now been proven to have been specially modified to launch Cruise type and surface to air missiles.
This would allow Israel to attack American ships in the Persian Gulf, stage a nuclear attack on the London Olympics or shoot down commercial aircraft while blaming Iran.
Their powerful lobby in the US would back them up, their control of the press through much of the world would immediately blame Iran and any potential investigation would be rigged beforehand.
A critical component of the success of such an operation is that "highly informed sources" that might speak openly, would be threatened with any number of fates from immediate firing to the "accidental death" of their children.
In fact, we actually have statements from "highly informed sources" that this has happened before, more than once, in the US, United Kingdom and elsewhere in Europe. See how we Zionists think everything through? 
 |
| Lebanese graduate from Technion accused of "collaboration" Posted: 16 Jul 2012 07:00 AM PDT At the very same time that graduates from American University of Lebanon were heckling an American honoree for supporting Israel's existence, a Lebanese Arab woman was honored - as the valedictorian at Israel's Technion! From the Times of Israel, June 6: The daughter of the man who founded a mini-army in southern Lebanon graduated on Wednesday from a prestigious Israeli university with a master's degree in aeronautics, having developed a rocket engine that enables speedier and longer-range missile fire.
Arza Haddad, 31, is the daughter of the late Saad Haddad, an officer who split away from the Lebanon Army in 1976 with his unit to create what became the South Lebanon Army, the Maariv daily reported. Haddad allied himself with Israel to fight guerrilla and terror groups and protect the Christian community in South Lebanon, including in the First Lebanon War, whose 30th anniversary falls this week.
After Haddad's death in 1984, Arza completed high school and then fled to Israel. On Wednesday, she graduated with a master's degree in Aeronautics from the Technion in Haifa, having worked in research on Ramjet missile engines. The rocket she worked on, she said, "can travel 1,000 kilometers, relatively rapidly."
The valedictorian at the graduation ceremony, she told Maariv she had not yet decided whether to mention her father in her speech, as "some people remember him well and some don't."
She said she herself does not remember her father well as he died of an illness when she was three years old, but that his competitiveness and perseverance were passed on to his family members. She said she had no plans to return to Lebanon. "My whole adult life is here. Israel is my home." The story was quickly picked up by Lebanese media. And then they feverishly claimed that her rocket designs are meant to be used by Israel against Lebanon. So, naturally, this was inevitable: Military Prosecutor Judge Saqr Saqr charged Monday the daughter of the disbanded South Lebanon Army of collaborating with the Jewish State.
Arza Saad Haddad, a Lebanese with an Israeli nationality, is the daughter of Saad Haddad, founder of the Lebanese militia which fought alongside Israel during its occupation of south Lebanon 1982 to 2000.
Based on articles 285 and 278 of the Penal Code, Sakr accused Haddad of collaborating with Israel and entering the Jewish state. The case has been transferred to an investigative judge. 
 |
| Gaza gets visitors from Yemen and the UNHRC Posted: 16 Jul 2012 05:00 AM PDT From the Al Qassam Brigades website: Gaza premier Ismail Haneyya has affirmed that the Israeli occupation was fading and its strategy in Gaza had failed.
Haneyya, speaking to a visiting Yemeni popular delegation on Sunday, said that the Palestinian people are more determined than ever before to restore their land and to return the refugees to their homeland.
He said that Israel would not be able to occupy more land but would rather decline to its fateful end, asserting that there is no future for occupation on the land of Palestine.
The premier hailed the Yemeni delegation, saying that its visit proved that the Palestinian people were not alone in the field of confrontation and against siege.
The chief Yemeni delegation, for his part, affirmed his country would not be preoccupied with its own issues away from Palestine and would continue to support the Palestinian cause. It is fairly clear from this article that Hamas defines "occupation" as "all of Israel." But note how the Yemen delegation, coming from a country that is fighting for its life against Al Qaeda and that faces a huge humanitarian crisis as hundreds of thousands of kids are literally starving to death, still says that helping Hamas terror groups is a priority for them. Because what's more important - helping starving kids in their own country or helping these "starving" Gazans at the beach? But these weren't the only visitors to Gaza yesterday. The magnificent organization, the UN, sent representatives from its "Human Rights Council" to Gaza: A delegation from the United Nations Human Rights Commissioner's office arrived in the Gaza Strip on Saturday evening via Egypt's Rafah crossing, Egyptian media said.
The 11-member delegation will discuss Israel's violations of human rights in the coastal enclave, according to Egypt's Middle East News Agency. There is no shortage of people in Gaza eager to testify about Israel to the UN - yesterday, the Al Mezan Center spent hours detailing hundreds of supposed Israeli crimes - but you won't find anyone willing to say a word against the terrorist government that actually occupies Gaza. The UNHRC didn't send any delegations to Jordan, or Egypt, or Lebanon, and certainly not to Syria. Because, for both delegations, blaming Israel for all the world's problems is a hell of a lot easier than actually trying to solve them. 
 |
| "Summer brides" in Egypt; human trafficking in Iran Posted: 16 Jul 2012 02:00 AM PDT From Al Arabiya: Wealthy Arab tourists from Gulf countries are paying money to purchase under-age Egyptian girls as "summer-brides", claims a new report on human trafficking released by the U.S. State Department.
The marriages are not legally binding and end when the men return to their home countries.
According to the report "Trafficking in Persons", often times these temporary marriages are facilitated by the girls' parents who profit from the transaction.
According to Britain's The Daily Mail, the wealthy tourists pay an amount to poor families through intermediaries, ranging from anywhere between $495 and $4,950.The young victims, some under the age of 18, are then forced to serve as sex slaves as well as servants to their "husbands."
Egypt has laws in place that aim to combat human trafficking which prevent foreigners from marrying an Egyptian woman if there is more than ten years age difference, but marriage brokers have found a way around that by forging birth certificates to make the girls appear older and the men younger.
These contracts also eliminate any potential problems with hotels and land lords who may demand to see proof of marriage before allowing a couple to stay in a room together, since pre-marital sex is prohibited in Islam.
In many cases, the family agrees to marry their daughter without her consent, but often the girls are willing participants as they see it as the only way to help provide for their families.
In some cases the men take the Egyptian girls back to their home country to work as maids for their first wives. But even the girls who stay in Egypt do not fare much better since they often become ostracized by society and find it difficult to re-marry in the traditional way, particularly if the "summer marriage" resulted in a child.
Many of the young women end up in a cycle of temporary marriages with Gulf tourists, and others are targeted by Egyptian men who marry them in order to force them into prostitution.
Many abandon the child out of shame, either to orphanages or leaving them to join the hundreds of thousands of street children that already exist in Egypt. But Egypt isn't nearly as bad off as Iran is in this State Department report. Iran is a source, transit, and destination country for men, women, and children subjected to sex trafficking and forced labor. Iranian and Afghan boys and girls residing in Iran are forced into prostitution within the country. Iranian women, boys, and girls, are subjected to sex trafficking in Iran, as well as in Pakistan, the Persian Gulf, and Europe. Azerbaijani women and children are also subjected to sex trafficking in Iran.
Afghan migrants and refugees are subjected to forced labor in Iran. Men and women from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Iraq migrate voluntarily to Iran, or through Iran, to other Gulf states, particularly the UAE, and Europe, seeking employment. Some are subsequently subjected to conditions of forced labor, including debt bondage, through the use of such practices as restriction of movement, nonpayment of wages, and physical or sexual abuse. NGO reports indicate criminal organizations, sometimes politically connected, play a significant role in human trafficking to and from Iran, particularly across the borders with Afghanistan and Pakistan in connection with the
smuggling of migrants, drugs, and arms. Unconfirmed reports indicate that religious leaders and immigration officials are involved in human trafficking.
The Government of Iran does not comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking, and is not making significant efforts to do so. The government did not share information on its anti-trafficking efforts with the international community during the reporting period; this impedes the collection of information on the country's human trafficking problem and the government's efforts to curb it. Publicly available information from NGOs, the press, international organizations, and other governments nonetheless indicate that the Iranian government is not taking sufficient steps to address its extensive trafficking challenges. For these reasons, Iran is placed on Tier 3 for a seventh consecutive year. 
 |
אין תגובות:
הוסף רשומת תגובה