| Egyptian "expert" pushes Passover blood libel. Sponsored by Visa. Posted: 17 Apr 2014 07:21 PM PDT  | | Hafzi |
MEMRI translates an article from Egyptian magazine El Kibar by Firnas Hafzi, a supposed expert on Hebrew who also writes about fashion, beauty and health. The article breaks new ground in the classic Passover blood libel, recycling the historic medieval blood libels as fact and adding new accusations against Jews. The article, along with illustrations from antisemitic and even Nazi sources, is online. Excerpts: In another stage of the Passover celebrations, [the Jews] combined the preparation of matzas and the offering up of sacrifices with their enmity towards non-Jews, especially Christians, and mixed the blood of one of their victims into the matza [dough. This was done] especially on Passover, Purim and circumcision rituals. They also used blood in acts of sorcery and witchcraft...
...The draining of the victims' blood is done in [several ways. One method is] by means of a barrel lined with needles. This is a barrel the size of the victim's body, with sharp needles that stick into all his limbs when he is placed in it, so that his blood slowly trickles down from every part of his body. This entails excruciating torment, which gives pleasure to the Jews who become drunk with joy at the sight of the blood dripping from the victim's [body] to the bottom of the barrel and into a container placed there to collect it. [Another method] is to slaughter the victim like a sheep and collecting his blood in a vessel, or else slashing the victim's veins in numerous places so that the blood flows from the wounds into the vessels. Then the blood is handed to a rabbi who prepares a matza laced with human blood in order to please the Jewish god, Jehovah, who thirsts for blood. The Jews can rejoice in their holidays only if they eat matza laced with the blood of non-Jews.
 Based on this false [narrative] in the Torah and this barbaric behavior anchored in delusions, we can understand what motivates the Zionist leaders to kill Arab children in Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Palestine. Former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir once said, insolently, 'whenever I hear of the birth of an Arab child I cannot sleep at night.'
...The Jewish crimes which came to light throughout history and which were investigated and tried are a drop in the ocean compared to the Jewish crimes that no one knows about. The thousands of children and others who vanish around the world are probably victims of Jewish rituals. Their blood surely lies in Jewish stomachs along with the holiday matzas.
The Jews have tried denying that they drain the blood of non-Jews and use it in their holiday matzas, and they continue to deny it. Rabbi Moussa Abu 'Afia [one of the Jews implicated in the 1840 Damascus blood libel] converted to Islam during the investigation into the [murder] of Father Toma in order to escape punishment. He gave important testimony regarding the Talmud and the directions it contains that hint at crimes and barbarity.
As part of the efforts to deny [the Jewish crimes], Jewish Americans wrote stories about vampires in the 1970s, in order to disassociate themselves from the accusation of sucking human blood and deceive [the mechanisms of] justice. During that period they spent millions on Dracula films, in order to deceive world public opinion. They claimed that those who slaughter children and adults and suck their blood are lunatics and that all this has nothing to do with them and their religious rituals. On February 14, 1964, the [Egyptian] magazine Al-Musawwar published a story about vampires in Colombia after many [Colombian] children had been slaughtered to shed their blood. Neither the magazine nor the investigators in Colombia dreamed that the vampires might be Jews, rather than [people who] sell blood to hospitals. Out of hundreds of millions of Arabs, I cannot find a single one denouncing these lies and incitement. We know from past experience that such naked antisemitism in Arab media cannot be solved by merely publicizing it. Most Arabs are not even aware that there is anything offensive about describing Jews as murderous bloodsuckers. However, a major advertiser for Al Kibar is Visa, with this ad popping up on most articles and shown on the main page: I emailed to Visa's media relations departments for Egypt ( nbaradhy@visa.com) , the US ( globalmedia@visa.com) and Europe ( europeanmedia@visa.com). Dear sir or madam,
Visa Middle East is a major advertiser for Egypt's El Kebar magazine. Every online article seems to pop up your ad for the FIFA World Cup promotion.
The current issue includes a sickeningly antisemitic article by Firnas Hafzi that calls Jews "vampires," that claims that Jews kill Christian children to drink their blood and mix them with Passover matzah, and that the Dracula story was made up by Jews to deflect from people realizing that they are the ones who suck people's blood.
And that is just the beginning.
The article is here, the translation is here. Your ad is linked from the front page of the El Kebar website and pops up when viewing this vile antisemitic article.
I would hope that now that you are aware that your brand is being associated with the most disgusting kinds of incitement, that you will not only drop all sponsorship of this magazine but also demand that El Kebar issue a strong apology for publishing this filth.
What do you plan to do about this, and when?
I am a news blogger with thousands of readers, and I am writing about this article and your sponsorship of it.
I look forward to your speedy reply. I urge you to write to Visa as well. Here is a chance to make a difference.  |
| 04/17 Links Pt2: Ed Miliband is No Friend of Israel; More Flights to T.A.; SodaStream Stocks Surge Posted: 17 Apr 2014 03:00 PM PDT From Ian:
A perplexing rewriting of history"The Encyclopaedia of Jewish-Muslim relations from their origins to the present day" was launched in November 2013. There is a more modest English version, published by Princeton.
Critics such as the authority on Sephardi Jews, Professor Shmuel Trigano, have charged that the encyclopedia is nothing but a work of propaganda. It is all the more insidious because so much money has been spent on its promotion. Unusually for a book, the encyclopedia has a website all to itself and was the subject of a TV series on the French channel Arte.
Among the sponsors are The Alliance of Civilisations (co-sponsored by Spain and Turkey, and adopted as a UN initiative which excludes Israel from its Council of Friends), whose task is to change the 'narrative' by promoting the Spain of the Three Religions, the Andalusian Golden Age, and so forth.
As far as Arab collaboration with the Nazis is concerned, Dr. Roth accuses Henry Laurens, the author of the two pages on the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin Al-Husseini, of minimizing his role. There is no mention, says Roth, of the pro-Nazi Palestinian leader Fawzi al Qawuqj, or the Mufti's broadcast calls for genocide on Radio Berlin, nothing on the Mufti's creation of the SS Handschar division staffed by Bosnian Muslims, nothing about the part he personally played in condemning 20,000 European Jewish children to the death camps, and nothing about the Mufti having contact with the Nazis as early as 1936.
Regrettably, the Encyclopaedia is typical of the politicization of the study of Islam and its treatment of non-Muslims. Young minds are being brainwashed by a sanitized version of history with a huge promotional budget – replete with distortion, minimization and omission. Are we going to sit back and let it happen? Iraqi Writer: The Jews Are Behind All Confrontations WorldwideIn an antisemitic article titled "Al Qaeda – a Zionist Product," Iraqi writer 'Amr Hadi Al-'Issawi argued that the Jews viewed other peoples with arrogance, following the directives of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and that they have deceived other peoples –the Arabs in particular – and fed them poison for decades. Al-'Issawi added that the Jews and the Hebrew state are responsible for stoking conflict in all the world's hotspots, and are behind all major events in the world, including the toppling of the constitutional monarchies and the deposing of Arab dictatorships – this, in a bid to transfer control to political Islam and set the entire region ablaze as a prelude to the establishment of Greater Israel. Obama Apologizes To Muslims For Anti-Jewish Kansas Attacks (satire)"In is unconscionable that in twenty-first century America a man can, with the pull of a trigger, manage to generate solidarity, even empathy, for non-Muslims," read the statement. "In the name of all Americans of conscience, we beg the forgiveness of our Muslim countrymen and resolve to work diligently to prevent any cause for sympathy for anyone else, especially Jews."
Muslim representatives welcomed the apology as a necessary first step. "We would have liked to see a more comprehensive expression of solidarity with our worldview," said the director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Mahder Fahkir. "But this is at least a suitable preliminary indication that we are headed in the right direction, that eventually the non-Muslim establishment will acknowledge that no other religious or ethnic group is worthy of protection. We encourage our non-Muslim co-citizens to embrace their status as dhimmi."
Other leaders said the statement did not go nearly far enough. "Where is the open condemnation of Israel? Where is the naked justifying of the act as a natural consequence of Jewish behavior?" wondered influential political commentator Max Blumenthal, whose Jewish followers number at least in the teens. "The president squandered a golden opportunity to state openly that violence against Jews can only be blamed on Jews, since nobody else has any agency." The U.K.'s Ed Miliband is No Friend of IsraelCount me – along with many other Jews – among those who are hoping that the U.K. has to keep waiting for its first Jewish Prime Minister.
While Miliband proclaims "I am not religious. But I am Jewish. My relationship with my Jewishness is complex. But whose isn't?" – the man doesn't believe in God and describes himself as a "Jewish atheist" – he is no friend to the State of Israel.
There is plenty of history to show the Jewish community should have many concerns about Miliband. While he has visited Israel (including as a child), and has said he supports "the homeland for the Jewish people," there is ample evidence that should lead to many questions and concerns in the Jewish community. UK: Outrage as 'Neo-Nazi' Store Opens in Jewish NeighborhoodGerman clothing brand Thor Steinar opened its first UK store in Finchley, north London, yards away from the office of the Chief Rabbi, and not far from the headquarters of the Islamic Association.
The brand is popular among Neo-Nazis and other fascist groups, and heavily features Nodic symbols often associated with white supremacism.
Its original logo featured runes placed together to resemble the insignia of the Nazi SS.
In 2012 it sparked anger after naming a German store "Brevik", which some critics said was a blatant tribute to far-right killer Anders Behring Breivik. JPost Editorial: The Hirsi Ali debaclePerhaps this is too much to expect of CAIR, an organization known for shutting down debate about Islam by leveling claims of Islamophobia. Indeed, Islam has become the only religion against which criticism is regularly silenced, sometimes for fear of violent retaliation – as was the case in the 2005-2006 Danish cartoon controversy – other times out of political correctness and a desire not to offend Muslims.
No comparably hysterical reactions follow the public airing of criticism against Judaism, Zionism, Catholicism, evangelical Christianity or any other religion or ideology.
It is worrying that Brandeis, an institute of higher learning purportedly dedicated to the sort of free exchange of ideas and open criticism that lead to righting wrongs and uprooting injustice, is being held captive by repressive forces that dominate most Muslim-majority countries. And Brandeis is not alone. Islamophobia/Islamophilia: An intellectual inquisitionHirsi Ali joins a long list of those impugned for "insulting the faith," including Voltaire, Socrates and Spinoza. The key word in the modern debate is "Islamophobia."
A very crafty term, it was invented to strike the ear as similar to "homophobia" and thus foster the impression that any critique of Islam is simply an expression of bias. In this way the Islamic religion was implicitly transformed from a religion into a race or sexual orientation. Those Islamophilic supporters of Islam in the West understood that there is a vast and gloried enlightenment tradition of critiquing religion, and that to shield faith from criticism, one must pretend it is not a faith at all.
This isn't the first time the notion of "phobia" has been invented as a shield for a culture to place it above other culture and free it from criticism. A similar lobby was created in the 1880s to castigate people as "Germanophobes." After the unification of Germany, the creation of the German High Seas Fleet, and the rise of Teutonic colonialism in Africa, many voices in Russia, France and England became suspicious of German intentions. They were said to have a "phobia," an irrational fear of German intentions.
Similarly fears of Russian expansionism were labeled "Russophobia." Will anti-Israel Cornell divestment groups stage takeover?When a divestment resolution was tabled at U. Michigan, the pro-divestment students took over the student government offices and staged a sit-in until the student council agreed to a full debate and vote. That debate ended with the same result by almost precisely the same margin, but only after the campus was ripped apart with threats and harassment.
Will Cornell go the same way of U. Michigan with the losing side taking direct action after losing a vote?
Looks that way. A Cornell student forwarded to be the flyer below which is being circulated. While the flyer raises a number of issues, clearly the impetus was the Israel divestment vote. It looks like an attempt to hook other unrelated causes into the anti-Israel divestment cause through a solidarity movement — a pretty classic tactic: American Studies Assoc pulls Institutional Membership list from Quarterly PublicationASA listed its Institutional Members in its American Quarterly journal, and in its annual meeting book. There was no other source of this information, as far as we were able to ascertain.
Of the 80 Institutional Members of ASA listed in ASA's 2013 American Quarterly, many either withdrew membership or denied being members in the first place. We confirmed the following:
We also were aware that other Institutional Members were reevaluating membership, or considered moving the Institutional Membership out of the University name and into the Department name.
Since then, we have awaited ASA's first 2014 American Quarterly issue, to see how the Institutional Membership list had changed. That next issue has shipped, but ASA no longer lists its Institutional Members. Badil – a grantee of the New Israel FundBADIL's mission is to "defend and promote the rights of Palestinian refugees and IDPs."
That in itself sounds fine. However when you look deeper you find information you'd rather not find.
Its aim centres around promoting Palestinian "right of return." It regularly accuses Israel of genocide and "slow genocide."
In May 5, 2010, the Palestinian NGO BADIL awarded a prize to a blatantly antisemitic cartoon, featuring a grotesque caricature of a Jewish man standing over a dead Arab child and holding a pitchfork dripping with blood.
The image was featured on its website until NGO Monitor contacted DanChurchAid, a BADIL partner, and its officials intervened. The joint funding was frozen in May 2011. after BADIL posted antisemitic images on its website . BBC continues to yawn at PA glorification of terrorismCan we really imagine that if the Northern Ireland Assembly chose to name a forest after an IRA terrorist and to televise the inauguration ceremony on state-run TV, that would not make BBC headlines?
We've said it before, but unfortunately we have to say it again: BBC audiences cannot reach an "understanding of international issues" if the habitual glorification of terrorists and terrorism by a party to the peace process is consistently and deliberately kept out of their view. Route 35 terror attack gets a grand total of 34 words in BBC reportThe photograph's equally misleading caption reads:
"Tensions are high in Hebron after an Israeli policeman was killed in the West Bank"
That choice of wording reinforces the mistaken impression already given to BBC audiences by the photograph that the said policeman was killed in the line of duty rather than in a terror attack against him and his family.
In the original article's final paragraph the BBC managed to come up with the following thirty-four words to describe the incident, with notable use of the politically partial term "occupied West Bank":
"Israel is also angry at the killing of an off-duty Israeli policeman in the occupied West Bank on Monday on the eve of the Passover Jewish holiday. The officer's wife and child were wounded." Donetsk Pro-Russians Order Jews to 'Register or be Deported' for Supporting Kiev RuleA flyer bearing the stamps of the self-proclaimed People's Republic of Donetsk has allegedly ordered all Jews in the eastern Ukrainian city to register with the pro-Russian separatists - or face deportation.
The leaflet, signed by self-styled "people's governor" Denis Pushilin, has been handed over to Jews near the Donetsk synagogue, according to Novosti Donbassa (Donbass News) news agency.
It orders all Jews aged over 16 years old to register before the government building, which has been occupied by pro-Russian insurgents in defiance of Kiev rule.
Jews would also have to pay a registration fee of $50 (£30) before 3 May and list all real estate and vehicles owned. German Court Upholds Conviction of Holocaust-Denying BishopA German court in Nuremberg has rejected the appeal of the British-Catholic Bishop Richard Williamson, who was convicted of denying the Holocaust.
In an interview to the Swedish channel SVT1 in 2009, 74-year-old Williamson, openly doubted that six million Jews were killed during the Holocaust, and claimed that the real numbers are much lower. Hungary marks Holocaust anniversary despite protestsIn Budapest, President Janos Ader and Deputy Prime Minister Tibor Navracsics lit candles at a monument by the Danube commemorating the thousands of Jews shot into the water in 1944-1945 by the Hungarian fascist Arrow Cross militia.
A ceremony was also to be held at Budapest's Holocaust Museum, with trees planted and candles lit to remember the 600,000 Hungarian Jews who perished in the Holocaust.
But the commemorations were marred by the absence of Hungary's largest Jewish organisation, Mazsihisz, which has said it will boycott all "Holocaust 2014″ events. Italy's Jewish locals insulted by comedian-politician's remarks Beppe Grillo, a comedian as well as founder and leader of the populist Five Star Movement (M5S), defended his use of the Holocaust, Auschwitz and Primo Levi as a launching pad for ferocious criticism against the president, prime minister and the entire Italian parliament.
Grillo's blog published a photo of the infamous Arbeit macht frei (Work makes free) sign above the gates of Auschwitz, retouched to read "P2 macht frei." P2 is a secretive – and, in the eyes of many, subversive – Italian Masonic lodge that counts many politicians among its members. Nazi Memorabilia Sale Canceled by France Auction HouseThe memorabilia included Goering's passport and a wooden chest marked with swastikas, which was owned by Hitler. The French Culture Minister had joined Jewish groups in denouncing the sale. The auction house, Vermot de Pas, said it had not intended to stir controversy.
"We were pitching this as part of the responsibility to remember – but in no way to shock or create a polemic," AP news agency quoted co-manager Laudine de Pas, as saying. Royal Jordanian adds two weekly flights to IsraelIsrael's Civil Aviation Authority has approved a request from Royal Jordanian Airlines to add two weekly flights to its schedule, increasing to 16 the carrier's weekly trips between the Amman and Ben-Gurion international airport.
The two new flights, one each on Thursday and Saturday, will begin on May 1. British Airways to add more Tel Aviv-London flightsStarting next winter, British Airways will increase its number of weekly flights between Tel Aviv and London from 14 to 17. The purpose of the increase is to give travelers from Israel more convenient arrival times as well as shorter connection times.
Under the new schedule, the first morning flight, a wide-body Boeing 777 aircraft, will depart Ben-Gurion International Airport daily at 7:30 a.m. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, a second morning flight will depart at 10:30 a.m. There will also be a daily flight departing at 4:30 p.m. Airbus 321 aircraft will be used for the 10:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. flights. Thailand, Germany, France pick up Israeli reality TV formatsFollowing MIPTV's spotlight on Israeli television, new deals between international broadcasters and Israeli format-makers have been popping up repeatedly.
ProSieben Germany recently announced the license of the dating format, Guys in Disguise. Newen, France also picked up the funny dating show that launched at MIPCOM. Guys in Disguise was developed by Armoza Formats together with Artza Productions.
Meanwhile, leading Thai production company, Zense Entertainment, has acquired the license for the street game show Do Me a Favor–an original format that tests just how far complete strangers would go to help you. And Thai group Kantana Group Public Company secured the rights to prime time studio entertainment format I Can Do That! Sodastream surges on Starbucks, Pepsi sale reportAt-home soda may soon have a new big money backer.
Israeli financial news daily Calcalist reported (citing no sources) that Sodastream was in early talks to sell up to 16% of the company to a large potential investor, specifically mentioning PepsiCo , Dr Pepper Snapple Group , and Starbucks . The report jolted Sodastream shares up over 8% on Wednesday morning.
Calcalist wrote that the valuation discussed places Sodastream at about $1.1 billion, a 30% markup from its current market cap. That would put shares at $52 each, more than Tuesday's close of $37.64, as well as $40.88 at Wednesday at 1:28pm EDT.  |
| Lucknow, India shows how entrenched Muslim antisemitism is Posted: 17 Apr 2014 01:00 PM PDT Dr. Navras Jaat Aafreedi is an Indo-Judaic Studies Scholar and Muslim-Jewish Relations Activist, employed as an Assistant Professor in the School of Humanities & Social Sciences, Gautam Buddha University, Greater NOIDA, India. He writes in Café Dissensus: I grew up in Lucknow, a major centre of Muslim scholarship and culture, home to prestigious institutions of Islamic studies, Nadwātul Ulamā and Firangi Mahal. Except for a Jewish writer from Ahmedabad, Sheela Rohekar, who publishes in Hindi and has settled in Lucknow, and a few American and Israeli Jewish converts to Hinduism, there are no Jews in the city. Yet they find frequent mention in the Muslim discourse there. The mention is almost always negative in nature. Anti-Israel protests are common in the city and, during the American led invasion of Iraq, flags of Israel and America were drawn on the floor at the entrance to the biggest tourist attraction there, the Shia Muslim monument, Asafi Imambara (also called Bara Imambara), so that nobody could enter it without trampling the flags.
The attitudes of the Muslims of Lucknow towards Jews, like anywhere else in India, except in Mumbai, where they happen to be neighbours, are shaped by secondary sources of information and not as a result of any direct contact with them. The Muslim press in Lucknow is openly prejudiced against them. Its bias against Jews can be illustrated by a number of examples.
My doctoral research on "The Indian Jewry and the Self-Professed 'Lost Tribes of Israel' in India", was misrepresented in the Urdu (the lingua franca of a large number of South Asian Muslims) press as a Zionist conspiracy against Islam aimed at depriving it of its bravest followers, the Pathans/Pashtuns, as they see themselves, by convincing them of their Israelite roots and then persuading them to migrate to Israel and populate the disputed territories there. The Freemason Temple in Hazratganj in Lucknow is perceived by Muslims to be Jewish-owned and that is exactly how it is represented by the Muslim journalists in Lucknow. A movement has been initiated to liberate its building, which used to be an imāmbārā before being leased to the Freemasons, from the alleged Jewish control....
While a Holocaust film retrospective, the first ever in South Asia, was in progress at two universities in Lucknow – the Bābāsāhéb Bhīmrāo Ambédkar University and the University of Lucknow – in September – October 2009, the two most popular Urdu daily newspapers there, Rāshtriya Sahāra and Aag, published stories denying the Holocaust. The articles were largely based on the arguments made by the well-known Holocaust deniers, viz., David Irving, Harry Elmer Barnes, David Hoggan, Paul Ressinier, and Arthur R. Butz. A large section of South Asian Muslims deny that the Holocaust ever took place, or raises doubts about its magnitude and scale, and even if it does acknowledge it as a historical fact, any serious reference to the Holocaust is often accompanied by a comparison with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Maulana Kalbé Sādiq, the veteran Shia cleric, once said in an interview, "…the Bush administration certainly is anti-Islam. This owes, in large measure, to the power of the Zionist lobby in America. Pro-Zionist Jews control large banks, many industries and much of the media in America, and if they leave America, the country will collapse. And it is this lobby, in addition to the extreme right-wing Christian lobby, that is behind the clearly anti-Islamic and anti-Muslim policies of the Bush government."
...
Syed Abul Hasan Ali Nadwi, who was the rector of Nadwatul Ulama in Lucknow and Founding Chairman of the Trustees of the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, wrote in his book, Islam and the World (u.d.): "…they [Jews] were destined always to live in subjection to other nations and ever to be exposed to injustice, oppression, chastisement, extradition, troubles and hardships. Political serfdom, oppression and anguish suffered indefinitely had produced in them a typical racial character. They were notorious all over the world for excessive pride of blood and greed. Meek and submissive in distress, they were tyrannical and mean when they had the upper hand. Hypocrisy, deceit, treachery, selfishness, cruelty and usuriousness had become the normal traits of their nature. In the Qur'an we find repeated references to the extent to which they had sunk into degradation in the sixth and the seventh centuries" (pp.22-3). Because of wonderful organizations like MEMRI and Palestinian Media Watch, Muslims in the Arab world are a bit more careful about openly espousing hatred for Jews, instead pretending that they are only against Zionists. When you get out of the Middle East, however, you can often see that Muslim hatred of Jews is endemic. Aafreedi does end his piece on an optimistic note mentioning a few Indian Muslims who are reasonable and open-minded about Jews. It is always nice to see that there are some Muslims who can think independently and who can shake off the hatred they grew up with, even to a small extent. The New York Times just featured one such tiny group in Gaza which is somewhat more moderate than their fellow Gazans. Certainly such people should be applauded, if for nothing else than their bravery. But no one should mistake the existence of such small, anomalous pockets of sanity as a trend.  |
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