JANUARY - APRIL 2005 NEWS ARCHIVE

Friday, April 28, 2005
MESSIANIC JEWS IN ISRAEL "NOW NUMBER 10,000"
The Jerusalem Post has a head count:

Excerpt:
"Christian communities actively courting Israelis, whose members are collectively known as Messianic Jews, have been considerably reinforced by recent immigration waves and now comprise some 10,000 Israelis, according to Messianic leaders and their Jewish opponents. "

"... illegal in Israel when involving material benefits for prospective converts, proselytization here has risen sharply in response to the post-Soviet immigration waves. "

BRITISH TEACHER UNION BANNING OF ISRAELI TEACHERS FACING BACKLASH
The Jerusalem Post has more on the reaction of some British academics about the banning of Israeli teachers:

Excerpt:
"The Association of University Teachers (AUT) has received a flood of protests, accompanied by an increasing number of resignations, following its decision to adopt boycotts against Israeli universities last Friday.

The backlash, which may take the form of mass resignations from the union, has seen an outpouring of protests by Jewish and non-Jewish academics across Britain. "

"...Fifteen academics from the Board of the London-based Leo Baeck Institute signed a letter expressing "dismay" at the AUT resolutions: "All agree in deploring the proposed boycott of Israeli universities and academics who fail to satisfy a political inquisition. Israeli universities, notably the three targets of the boycott, represent the best ideals of the university as a place of tolerance and the free exchange of views, in which Jews, Muslims and Christians study and work together."

The letter, which registered alarm at the "double standards and hypocrisy" behind the resolution, asked: "Will the tests and the boycott apply to Israeli Arab academics or only Jews?"

UPDATE April 30, 2005: Jerusalem Post has more on the AUT banning, and efforts within the Union to overturn it. Also covers the resignations of teachers who oppose their Unions stand.

Friday, April 24, 2005
ISRAELI ACADEMICS BANNED IN BRITAIN BY TEACHER'S UNION
The Jerusalem Post reports on the banning of Israeli academics in Britain:

Excerpt:
"The decision by Britain's 40,000 member Association of University Teachers (AUT) to boycott two Israeli universities on Friday has ignited scathing condemnation from Jewish communities worldwide and has prompted the immediate resignation of Jewish academics from the AUT.

In a blitz procedure timed - on the eve of Passover - to exclude Jewish members from the conference, the AUT rushed through two motions to boycott Haifa and Bar Ilan universities, exhibiting an unprecedented escalation of a campaign by British academics to target Israel.

A jovial executive union meeting heard unanswered orations by Sue Blackwell and Shereen Benjamin, both lecturers at Birmingham University. The academics labeled Israel as a "colonial apartheid state, more insidious than South Africa," called for the "removal of this regime," and depicted Israeli universities as "repressing" academic freedom. "

A blog called pbase.com has a photo from one of the boycotted universities in Israel. It also mentions: 'The Israeli ambassador to UK was quoted as saying: "The last time jews were bocotted in universities have been in Nazi Germany during the 1930s" '

Friday, April 19, 2005
NEW CATHOLIC POPE A "SECRET" NAZI?
The Jerusalem Post rebuts some of the mainstream news reports on the new Pope in Rome:

Excerpt:
"London's Sunday Times would have us believe that one of the leading contenders for the papacy is a closet Nazi. In if-only-they-knew tones, the newspaper informs readers that German-born Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was a member of the Hitler Youth during World War II and suggests that, because of this, the "panzer cardinal" would be quite a contrast to his predecessor, John Paul II.

The article also classifies Ratzinger as a "theological anti-Semite" for believing in Jesus so strongly that – gasp! – he thinks that everyone, even Jews, should accept him as the messiah.

To all this we should say, "This is news?!"
As the Sunday Times article admits, Ratzinger's membership in the Hitler Youth was not voluntary but compulsory; also admitted are the facts that the cardinal – only a teenager during the period in question – was the son of an anti-Nazi policeman, that he was given a dispensation from Hitler Youth activities because of his religious studies, and that he deserted the German army."

Friday, April 10, 2005
ISRAELI GROUPS PUSHING FOR PASSOVER "SACRIFICIAL WORSHIP" IN JERUSALEM
The Jerusalem Post has an article about the efforts to start anew sacrifices in Jerusalem:

Excerpt:
"Today all we want is the right to pray on the Temple Mount," said Rabbi Yishai Ba'avad, secretary of The Institute for the Establishment of the Temple. "But this is just the first stage to realizing every Jew's aspiration to see the Temple rebuilt and the sacrificial worship renewed."

UKRAINE SALE OF 12 MISSILES TO IRAN: CAN REACH ISRAEL
Ha'aretz online reports about the investigations into a missile sale from Ukraine to Iran:

Excerpt:
Ukraine has acknowledged exporting to Iran 12 cruise missiles capable of reaching Israel amid mounting pressure from other countries to explain how the sales occurred, the Financial Times reported on Friday...

Ukraine also exported six missiles to China.

It quoted Ukraine's prosecutor general Svyatoslav Piskun as saying 18 X-55 cruise missiles, also known as Kh-55s or AS-15s, were exported in 2001, although none was exported with the nuclear warheads they were designed to carry.

The X-55 had a range of 3,000 kilometers (1,864 miles), enough to put Japan within striking range of the Asian continent or to reach Israel from Iran, said the newspaper, adding Piskun's statement was the first confirmation by a government official of the exports.

CANADA B'NAI BRITH CLAIM ANTI-SEMITISM UP 43%
Yahoo! News has a story on the rise of anti-Jewish assaults in Canada:

Excerpt:
B'nai Brith Canada's League for Human Rights released a report Tuesday citing 857 incidents across the country. That's the highest number since the organization began tracking such incidents 22 years ago. And it's up 47 per cent from 2003.

The biggest numbers were in Ontario and Quebec - the most populous provinces - with one incident recorded for the first time in Nunavut.

Especially troubling was a 59 per cent increase in incidents aimed at Jewish homes, said league director Ruth Klein. "We find this number especially chilling because it implies a measure of premeditation," Klein told an Ottawa news conference. "People are actually taking the trouble to find out where Jews live, and targeting them in their own homes."

C-SPAN AIRS HOLOCAUST DENIAL
HonestReporting.com has a brief on the cable network C-SPAN's decision to air material on holocaust denier David Irving:

Excerpt:
Deborah Lipstadt, Holocaust scholar at Emory University (...), will deliver a talk at Harvard University this evening (3/16), promoting her new book, History on Trial: My Day in Court with David Irving. C-SPAN wished to broadcast Lipstadt's talk on the network's BookTV program, but informed Lipstadt that a recent speech of Irving's (recorded by C-SPAN) would need to be broadcast as well.

C-SPAN, that is, sought out an 'opposing view' to Lipstadt's confirmation of the Nazi Holocaust. Lipstadt refused to be cast side-by-side with Irving, on the grounds that Holocaust denial does not merit public debate. Cohen asks the appropriate question: 'For a book on the evils of slavery, would C-SPAN counter with someone who thinks it was a benign institution?'

More on this here:

"...I asked Amy Roach, the C-Span producer handling this matter: “Would you put on someone who says slavery did not happen?” “No,” Roach assured me. Then why a Holocaust denier, I asked. “Oh,” she said quite breezily, “He’s not going to talk about Holocaust denial. He’s going to talk about the trial.” Since the trial was all about Holocaust denial, this struck me as completely wacko.

I also explained that deniers are liars, as we demonstrated overwhelmingly at the trial. (See Judge Charles Gray’s judgment at www.hdot.org. Click on Judgment and go to part XIII. Note the language he uses to describe Irving’s work.) Since they lie and distort to prove their points, how can one have a debate with them? One cannot trust anything that they say.

When I told Roach that this would hurt C-Span, she immediately assured me: “Oh, we don’t have advertisers, we aren’t susceptible to pressure.” I told her that I was not talking about pressure. I was talking about credibility. She said they have people of all opinions (Holocaust denial, an opinion?) on all the time.

The daimnation web site mentions this story and adds:

Excerpt:
David Irving's shoddy methodology and blatant fabrications have been debunked time and time again (most notably in Lying About Hitler by Richard Evans, an expert witness for the defence at the Irving/Lipstadt trial). A short visit to his website (I won't link to it, but it's not hard to find) confirms his racist, anti-Semitic, pro-fascist views. It's disturbing, to say the least, to see people who should know better deciding these views are worthy of being given an audience.

THE GERMANS & THE NAZI PAST
The UK Times has a story on the travails of the German political system and the rise in popularity of neo-nazi sympathy:

Excerpt:
Udo Voigt, leader of the German far-right NPD, faces inquiry for 'glorification' of Nazism

“ADOLF HITLER was a great German statesman,” the bête noire of the German Establishment said as he sat in a room darkened by bombproof shutters.
“If you can call Churchill a great Briton, if you can make a hero out of Alexander the Great, then you have to give that status to Hitler, too,” Udo Voigt, the leader of the far-right National Party of Germany (NPD), said. “My lawyer has told me to say no more than that.”

This rising right-wing extremist is under investigation for allegedly glorifying the Nazis. “All part of a strategy to criminalise me and marginalise the party,” he said.
But as Germany prepares for the 2006 general election, a criminal case could muzzle Herr Voigt, who is increasingly seen as a malign Pied Piper who entrances the surly young of eastern German housing estates.

So he is careful. There are no busts of the Führer in Herr Voigt’s bunker-like office, just maps of Germany as it was, various German and neo-Nazi flags and a poster that declares: “May 1945, Nothing to Celebrate.”

This year’s 60th anniversary commemorations have rallied Germany’s usually warring right-wing organisations. They are using them to stir regret for German wartime suffering, convert it into political anger and win voters across the generations.

Saturday, February 11, 2005
ANTI-SEMITIC ATTACKS IN BRITAIN RISE TO RECORD LEVEL
The UK Independent carries a story about the rise in anti-semitism in Britain:

Excerpt:
British jews were subject to a record number of anti-Semitic attacks last year, including a huge increase in serious assaults. The increase has been blamed on "the Middle East factor", with a sharp rise in incidents rooted in hatred of Israel.

For the first time in five years, assaults outnumbered incidents of damage to property, including the desecration of synagogues and graveyards.

SYRIA AND ISRAEL FIGHTER PLANE BATTLE
World Tribune reports that Syria and Israel had a fighter plane confrontation in September 2004:

Excerpt:
Diplomatic sources said Israel Air Force F-16 multi-role fighters intercepted and downed two Syrian MiG-29 fighter-jets last year. The sources said the dogfight took place in September 2004 over the eastern Mediterranean Sea.

This was the first engagement between Israeli and Syrian fighter-jets since the 1980s.

Tuesday, January 25, 2005
RUSSIAN NATIONALIST LAWMAKERS URGE BAN ON ALL JEWISH GROUPS
Yahoo! News carries the news about a group of 20 members of the 450 seat Russian Duma calling for legislation against all Jewish groups, saying that "...anti-Jewish acts around the world are staged by the Jews themselves as a provocation in order to take punitive measures against patriots."

Excerpt:
"Russia's nationalist lawmakers have asked the prosecutor general to ban all Jewish organizations because of their "extremist" views, in a vitriolic call ahead of this week's 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz.

The letter was dated January 13 but only rose to public attention this week. It shocked human rights defenders and even some of the original signatories reportedly changed their minds and were recalling their names.

A foreign ministry statement issued on the eve of President Vladimir Putin's attendance at the Auschwitz memorial commemoration in Poland said "the statement has nothing to do with the official position of the Russian leadership.

Further coverage of this is at the Toronto Star.

BERKELEY PROTESTERS: "HEBREW GENOCIDISTS OUT OF CANAAN"
The "Bus 19" blog at underscorebleach.net has a story about a protest at Berkeley University and the development of a new dating of the "Jewish occupation" of Palestine (or Canaan, depending on your word usage.

Excerpt:
"Over in the anti-Israel camp, I encountered a wide variety of Palestinian sympathizers. The ones who stood right next to the Palestinians were quite up-front about their feelings. The message "Hebrew Genocidists Out of Canaan" is part of a newly developing political meme (which I've begun to see more and more often at protests in Berkeley) that attempts to push the start of the "occupation" from 1967 CE all the way back to about 1400 BCE, when the early Israelite tribes first settled in the area now known as Israel and Palestine."

BRIT MUSLIMS BOYCOTT AUSCHWITZ LIBERATION ANNIVERSARY
The UK London Times carries a story about efforts to boycott the Auschwitz liberation anniversary ceremonies by various British Muslim groups (it notes there are 1.2 million Muslims in Britain).

Excerpt:
"BRITISH Muslims are to boycott this week’s commemoration of the liberation of Auschwitz because they claim it is not racially inclusive and does not commemorate the victims of the Palestinian conflict.

The Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh and Tony Blair will attend the ceremony in Westminster Hall this Thursday to mark the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz and other Nazi death camps, in which more than 6m Jews were exterminated.

More than 600 Holocaust survivors living in Britain, together with British soldiers who helped liberate the Bergen-Belsen death camp, will be at the event. Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, and Prince Edward will fly to Poland for a ceremony at Auschwitz. "

FRENCH PUBLIC SCHOOL EFFORTS TO TEACH ABOUT HOLOCAUST REBUFFED
The UK Reuters news wire has a story about the efforts to teach the history of the Holocaust in Europe to Muslims in French public schools:

Excerpt:
"Filthy Jew!" schoolchildren howl at a classmate. "Jews only want money and power," they tell their teachers. "Death to the Jews" graffiti appear on school walls outside Paris and other French cities.

These are not scenes from the wartime Nazi occupation or a fictional France where the far-right has taken control. Outright anti-Semitism like this is a fact of life these days in the poor suburbs where much of France's Muslim minority lives.

After a slow response when this "new anti-Semitism" flared four years ago, France has made fighting prejudice against Jews into a national priority. Holocaust education in state schools now starts with pupils as young as nine years old."

MAJORITY OF GERMANS "SICK" OF HEARING ABOUT HOLOCAUST
The UK London Times has news about poll results in Germany about attitudes concerning its Nazi past:

Excerpt:
"Most Germans would prefer to forget the Holocaust and are tired of hearing about Nazi crimes during the Third Reich, according to a poll released just before the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, writes Justin Sparks.

Some 62% of the 3,000 people questioned by researchers from the University of Bielefeld agreed they were “sick of all the harping on about German crimes against the Jews”.

Most said they wished to consign their country’s Nazi past to the history books. Well over half also thought there were too many foreigners living in Germany.

The poll horrified Lord Janner, a spokesman for British survivors of Auschwitz. “It’s appalling,” he said. “It raises fears that the current generation are not ready to pass on the history and lessons learnt from those events to their children.”

IRAN INVOLVED IN 1994 BOMBING IN ARGENTINA?
The BBC has a story on a trial in Argentina in which Iranians are accused of pulling off the 1994 attack on an Jewish cultural centre:

Excerpt:
"A former Iranian secret service agent has accused Iran of planning a 1994 bomb attack on a Jewish cultural centre in the Argentine capital, Buenos Aires.

"Witness C" told a Buenos Aires court via video-link from Germany that Iran attacked the centre thinking it was a base for the Israeli secret service.

More than 80 people died and 200 people were injured in the attack.

Iran has denied any involvement in the blast and says the case against it is politically motivated.

The car-bomb blast at the seven-story AMIA Jewish community centre on 18 July 1994 was Argentina's worst ever terror attack.”

Thursday, January 6, 2005
U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT "RISE IN GLOBAL ANTI-SEMITISM"
The Mercury News has a story on the just released United States State Department report on anti-semitism:

Excerpt:
"The stereotype of Jews as manipulators of the global economy continues to provide fertile grounds for anti-Semitic aggression," said the report to the Senate and House foreign relations committees.

Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., who pushed for annual State Department reports and for close monitoring through a new office in the department, welcomed the first global report on anti-Semitism.

"It is only a beginning," said Lantos, the senior Democrat on the House committee. "The department must act quickly to appoint an advocate of substantial rank and experience to coordinate our government's response to the current outbreak of anti-Semitic violence."

The Jerusalem Post covers the State Department report here.

The State Department Official report is here. The briefing manuscript is here.

Tuesday, January 4, 2005
ISRAEL "WORST COUNTRY"
The Jerusalem Post reports on a story from the U.K. Telegraph newspaper which has poll results showing Israel ranking extremely low in the opinion of the British public:

Excerpt:
British people rate Israel as the country least deserving of international respect, as well as one of the world's "least democratic countries," according to a recent survey.

Research company 'YouGov' carried out a survey for the British Telegraph, asking Britons to rate almost two-dozen countries on the basis of 12 different criteria.

See the results in a statistic form here.

ARCHIVE OF OLD NEWS
2006 January - March here
2005 January - April here
2005 May - Sept here
2005 October - December here
2004 January - February here
2004 June - December here
2003 January - October here
2003 November - December here

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