[Notes below by Tom Gross]

“BEAUTIFUL PORTRAITS OF AUSCHWITZ SURVIVORS”

Tuesday marks the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, Nazi Germany’s largest death camp, where more than one million Jews -- including hundreds of thousands of children -- were murdered, and other Jews and Roma were subjected to horrific torture under the guise of “medical experimentation” without anesthesia. (Other Jews, including children, were experimented on in Ravensbrück, Dachau, Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen, Natzweiler, Baranowicze and elsewhere.)

Several newspapers and websites are running a series of articles about the Holocaust in the run up to International Holocaust Memorial Day on Tuesday.

Reuters photographers have released these beautiful portraits of elderly survivors.

“I CAME OUT OF HELL INTO THE LIGHT”

The (London) Daily Mail reports on an emotional reunion between Joshua Kaufman, 87, and his rescuer Daniel Gillespie. Now aged 89.

The pair saluted each other as they were reunited on Huntington Beach, California.

Former U.S. soldier Gillespie said Kaufman was a “walking corpse” when he was rescued from Dachau death camp, near Munich.

At their reunion 70 years later, Kaufman first saluted his rescuer, then kissed his hand before falling to his feet, exclaiming: “I have wanted to do this for 70 years. I love you, I love you so much.”

Dachau was liberated by U.S. forces on April 29, 1945.

Kaufman said: “I came out of hell into the light. For that, and to him, I am eternally grateful.”

The reunion was organized last week by the “History Channel Deutschland” and will be screened in May.

Pictures here.

“STRANGER”

In this new video, Auschwitz survivor Roman Kent, who is president of the International Auschwitz Committee, reads Primo Levi’s poem “Stranger”.

Primo Levi’s account of his survival in Auschwitz, If This Is A Man, is in some respects the most important book of the Twentieth century -- in my opinion.

“WHY VLADIMIR PUTIN SHOULD BE AT THE AUSCHWITZ MEMORIAL CEREMONY: WE SHOULD FORGET NEITHER THE SOVIET UNION’S ROLE IN LIBERATING THE CAMPS NOR IT’S ANTI-SEMITIC BLIND SPOTS”

Antony Beevor, one of Britain’s leading historians, writes in The Guardian:

On 27 January 1945 a reconnaissance patrol from the Soviet 107th Rifle Division emerged from the snow-laden forest 70km west of Krakow. The soldiers were mounted on shaggy ponies, their submachine guns slung across their backs. In front of them stood Auschwitz-Birkenau, the grimmest symbol of modern history. Officers gazed around in disbelief, then called in medical teams to care for the 3,000 sick prisoners left behind.

It is a great shame that Vladimir Putin, having not been invited, won’t be present at a memorial ceremony next week to mark the 70th anniversary – at the very least, it would have reminded the world that the advance of Stalin’s Red Army forced the SS to abandon the extermination camps in the east. And yet the muted row over the Russian president’s absence is a reminder that this particular chapter in Russia’s second world war history was, and remains, full of contradictions.

The first death camp to be liberated by the Red Army was Majdanek just outside Lublin, in July 1944. The novelist and war correspondent Vasily Grossman was on the spot with the 8th Guards Army, which had defended Stalingrad, but an order came down that he was not to cover the story. The job was given instead to Konstantin Simonov, a favourite of the regime, who managed to avoid mentioning that any of the victims in Majdanek were Jewish.

Grossman, despite warnings from his friend Ilya Ehrenburg, had been slow to believe that anti-Semitism could exist within the Soviet hierarchy during the death struggle with Nazism. But in 1943 he had noticed that any reference to Jewish suffering was being cut from his articles…. Certain truths about the Shoah could never be published. When Grossman wrote about the extermination camp of Treblinka, he could not reveal that the auxiliary guards were mostly Ukrainian….

As the end of the war approached, controls became even stricter. Auschwitz may have been liberated at the end of January 1945, but no details were released until the final victory in May… Thus in a way Stalin was the first Holocaust denier, even if his anti-Semitism was not quite the same as that of the Nazis…

Full piece here.

* See also: “By the time the Soviet Army reached Auschwitz, my father was no longer there”

* See also: “A shy little bird hidden in my rib cage”.

ARGENTINE JEWISH GROUPS ANNOUNCE BOYCOTT OF GOVERNMENT HOLOCAUST CEREMONY

Argentina’s Jewish institutions have jointly announced that they will boycott the country’s official Holocaust Memorial Day ceremony on Tuesday to protest the murder last week of AMIA prosecutor Alberto Nisman, and the continuing cover-up of the 1994 AMIA center bombing, in which 85 Jews were murdered.

The Holocaust Museum of Buenos Aires and other organizations said they could not in good conscience stand alongside Argentinean government officials and would instead hold their own Holocaust memorial ceremony on Jan. 27.

Alberto Nisman was murdered last weekend one day before he was to deliver his long-awaited report accusing President Cristina Kirchner and Foreign Minister Hector Timerman of taking “the criminal decision of inventing Iran’s innocence to satisfy commercial, political and geopolitical interests of the Argentine republic.”

Nisman, who led the bombing probe for a decade, was found dead of a gunshot wound in his apartment on Monday just hours before he was to testify at the National Congress.

President Kirchner has now admitted initial government clams of suicide were wrong and Nisman was indeed murdered.

Thousands of people held a rally at the rebuilt AMIA headquarters in Buenos Aires last week demanding “truth and justice” from the government, and chanting “86, 86”, a reference to Nisman becoming in effect the 86th victim of the AMIA terrorists.

A similar protest was held outside the Argentine embassy in Tel Aviv, by Argentinean Jews who have emigrated to Israel, holding up placards reading “Yo soy Nisman,” Spanish for “Je suis Nisman.”

* Related links:

Alberto Nisman, The Man Who Knew Too Much

Is Iran Behind the Murder of Alberto Nisman?

AMIA investigator Claudio Lifschitz kidnapped and tortured

10 ISRAELI TOURISTS INJURED IN ANTI-SEMITIC ATTACK IN ARGENTINA

Ten Israeli tourists have been wounded in an anti-Semitic attack lasting three hours at a hostel in a small Argentine village.

Argentinean media reported that the Israelis were burned, robbed and beaten at the Onda Azul hostel in Lago Puelo, in southern Argentina, between 1 a.m. and 4 a.m. Monday.

The hostel told journalists “They shouted, ‘you f***ing Jews’ and other curses.”

The attackers threw stones and Molotov cocktails at the site, according to Argentinean Radio Continental.

JEWISH BOY, 13, ASSAULTED IN ANTI-SEMITIC ATTACK IN PARIS

In the latest of a long line of anti-Semitic attacks in France (most of which are not reported in the international media) a 13-year-old Jewish boy was sprayed in his eye with mace and pepper spray this week in a northeastern Paris suburb, by three young women shouting anti-Semitic slogans.

The victim wore a kippah and tzitzit, making him easily identifiable as Jewish. The victim was blinded, and rushed by passers by to hospital, where the police report said he suffered intense pain for some time. Police say the assailants, who fled the scene and have not yet been apprehended, were of North African appearance.

NON-JEWISH SWEDISH JOURNALIST ASSAULTED IN MALMO AFTER DONNING KIPPAH

Swedish TV on Wednesday showed footage of a non-Jewish reporter who walked around Malmo wearing a kippah to test attitudes toward Jews. He was punched in the arm and cursed at by passers-by before cutting short his journalistic experiment out of fear he would be subjected to more serious injury.

Sveriges Television also showed footage of the journalist sitting at a café in central Malmo reading a newspaper, while passersby hurled anti-Semitic abuse at him.

One of the people called him a “Jewish shit” and another told him to “get out of Sweden.”

The experiment was part of a documentary titled “Jew-hatred in Malmo.” The walk was a repeat of a similar walkabout conducted in Malmo in 2013 by journalist Patrick Riley, which I reported on in this list at the time. Unlike in the case of Riley’s report, a Swedish national TV camera crew secretly filmed last month’s experiment.

Immigrants from the Middle East and their children and grandchildren comprise about one quarter of Malmo’s 300,000 population. Only a few hundred Jews remain there.

Local Jewish leaders say the Swedish authorities have not done enough to stop a wave of anti-Semitic attacks mostly perpetrated by Muslims or Arabs.

Following Wednesday’s documentary, some Swedish politicians vowed to do more to protect Sweden’s remaining Jewish population.

The full TV report can be watched here (with English subtitles).

ATTACKS ON LONDON JEWS RISE BY 128 %

Hate crimes against Jews in London rose by 128 percent last year, according to official figures released last week by Scotland Yard, the police headquarters of the British capital.

British police said last week that they were increasing patrols in areas with Jewish communities. The British Home Secretary Theresa May, sporting a “Je suis Juif” badge, also vowed last week to do much more to stamp out anti-Semitism.

* See also: “Jewish primary school pupils are taught to dive under desks and lie like ‘sleeping lions’ to survive terror attack” (ITV News)
http://www.itv.com/news/london/2015-01-20/pupils-taught-to-dive-under-their-desks-and-lie-like-sleeping-lions-to-survive-terror-attack/

* See also: “It has been open season on Jews since 9/11: Home Secretary’s solidarity will be seen as an empty gesture unless it is followed up with firm action” by Richard Littlejohn, columnist for The Daily Mail (and a longtime subscriber to this list).

* Even The Morning Star, the official paper of the Communist Party of Great Britain, spoke out against anti-Semitism, in an editorial last week.

“SAUDI’S INFLUENCE ON THE OUTSIDE WORLD IS ALMOST WHOLLY MALIGN”

King Abdullah embodied the wickedness of Saudi Arabia’s regime

Change may be looming for Saudi Arabia, but reforming a country where torture, corruption and judicial murder are commonplace won’t be easy

By Andrew Brown
The Guardian
January 23, 2015

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/23/king-abdullah-wickedness-saudi-arabia-regime

We can always look on the bright side of the death of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and the accession of Prince Salman. It shows that, if reports of his ill-health are true, dementia can’t stop you reaching the very top – at least if you have the right parents. It is a danger for many political systems that they end up being run by men whose faculties are no longer up to it: think of Pope John Paul II in his long decline, Churchill after his strokes, Ronald Reagan or the Soviet gerontocracy. But Saudi is unique in the modern world in choosing as leader a man believed to be in decline even before he comes to power.

It is a final touch of absurdity in a kingdom that is wicked in itself, and a source of wickedness and corruption elsewhere in the world. Saudi Arabia practices torture and arbitrary judicial murder. Women are beheaded in the street, liberal thought is punishable by flogging, which can be a death sentence even more horrific, because it is more prolonged than having your head hacked off with a sword. It is a raft of fear and hatred lashed together, floating on unimaginable amounts of money, at least for the lucky few. Among the poor, not all of whom are slaves or foreigners, there is tufshan, a special word defined by an anthropologist as “subtle and incapacitating torpor”.

Saudi’s influence on the outside world is almost wholly malign. The young men it sent to fight in Afghanistan turned into al-Qaida. The Sunni jihadis whom Saudis have funded in Iraq and Syria turned into Isis. It has spread a poisonous form of Islam throughout Europe with its subsidies, and corrupted western politicians and businessmen with its culture of bribery. The Saudis have always appealed to the worst forms of western imperialism: their contempt for other Muslims is as great as any American nationalist’s.

But it is very hard to see what reforms might make it better. The example of the Soviet Union shows how chaotic and dreadful the collapse of a totalitarian autocracy can be. Although the Saudis will still have Islam if their state collapses – the Soviets lost their ideology as well their empire – their narrow and puritanical interpretation of Islam can hardly lead to peace. Besides, they face Shia enemies in an arc from Syria in the north, through Iraq and Iran, all the way round to Yemen in the south, where an insurgency is steadily gaining strength; and there is a Shia minority, ruthlessly suppressed, in the kingdom itself.

All these threats must strengthen the apparatus of repression and the belief of the rulers that if they lose their grip they will fall and be trampled in their turn. They may very well be right. It will require a truly wise and skilled leader to navigate what lies ahead. The grovelling tributes paid to the late king by western politicians describe the imaginary Saudi king we need, not those we have had or are likely to get.

WHY INDEED?

Why is Westminster Abbey honouring the king of a country where Christianity is banned?
By Ed West
The Spectator
January 23, 2015

http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2015/01/why-is-westminster-abbey-honouring-the-king-of-a-country-where-christianity-is-illegal/

Private Eye will have a field day when it comes to the tributes being paid to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia – it’ll be like beheading fish in a barrel (for adultery). Among the tributes paid to the people’s medieval theocrat was one by David Cameron, who said:

“I am deeply saddened to hear of the death of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, His Majesty King Abdullah bin Abd Al Aziz Al Saud.

“He will be remembered for his long years of service to the Kingdom, for his commitment to peace and for strengthening understanding between faiths.

“I sincerely hope that the long and deep ties between our two Kingdoms will continue and that we can continue to work together to strengthen peace and prosperity in the world.”

“PS We’re having a special deal on Typhoons [fighter jets] at the moment – 6 for 5. D.C.”

Ok, he didn’t say that last bit.

Then there was Angela Merkel, who said King Abdullah’s policies “brought him and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia respect and recognition. With wisdom, foresight and great personal dedication, he strove for a cautious modernization of his country and for dialogue between the Islamic world and the West.” Considering women still aren’t allowed to drive, I think cautious is a bit of an understatement.

Likewise with the IMG’s Christine Lagarde, who said Saudi King Abdullah was a strong advocate of women “in a very discreet way”.

Indeed – very discreet! As for Tony Blair, who said that the king was a “staunch advocate of inter faith relations”, when they read that out in the office did all they burst out laughing like bad guys in 1980s action films?

I believe in showing respect to the dead but do world leaders have to openly grovel to a country that exports Islamism around the world, whose ideology has poisoned countries like Pakistan and Indonesia, and which has funded Islamist murderers in Syria and Iraq. Abdullah’s kingdom is currently half-way through flogging a man to death for blogging and holds public beheadings for such crimes as witchcraft and homosexuality. So let’s not fall over ourselves here.

The nicest thing that can be said about the Saudi royals is that the alternative would almost certainly be even more ghastly (an alternative created by the Saudis themselves, of course). Most craven of all is the decision by Westminster Abbey to fly a flag at half-mast, a church honouring the leader of a country where conversion to Christianity is a capital offence. It’s appropriate for the Foreign Office in Whitehall to mark the late king’s passing, but for a church to do so, when Saudi treats Christians so badly, is utterly pathetic. If the Saudis despise us for such craven behaviour, they are right to.

Of all the world leaders, the only one who comes out of this well is Iranian president Hassan Rouhani, who said:

“I wish a peaceful rest for the late King, patience for his family and I wish success for the people and the government of Saudi Arabia.”

An appropriate and dignified response to the death of a king.

SO MUCH FOR THAT GREAT "REFORMER" ABDULLAH

Our Ally Saudi Arabia Beheaded 10 People This Month
By David Keyes
The Daily Beast
January 18, 2015

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/01/25/epstein-s-first-accuser-tells-her-story.html

American diplomats pay lip service to human rights while tens of billions of dollars in arms are shipped to the Kingdom of Hate, where you can be executed for 'sorcery' or tweeting about Islam.
If there is one point of consensus from the many Middle Eastern freedom fighters I’ve spoken with over the last decade, it is that Saudi Arabia is the root of all evil. Everywhere one looks, the fruits of Saudi-backed extremism are clear.

In the past two weeks, Saudi Arabia beheaded 10 people. Last year it beheaded nearly 90, a sharp spike from 2013. The “crimes” vary but the absurdity of the theocratic judicial system does not. Critique of the king is banned by law. Liberals are flogged, women drivers jailed and dissidents tortured. Saudi religious police ban “tempting eyes” and assert the right to cover any woman’s seductive gaze. Women cannot travel without a man’s permission.

The names of the victims begin to run together and are quickly forgotten. Khaled Johani, jailed for calling for democracy. Amina bint Nasser, beheaded for being a witch. Hamza Kashgari, jailed for questioning Islam on Twitter. Manal al Sharif, imprisoned for driving. Raif Badawy, flogged for opening an online liberal forum. Waleed Abul Khair, locked away for defending rights. Abdul Hamid Al Fakki, head chopped off for sorcery.

Intolerance is Saudi Arabia’s greatest export. The country’s highest religious authority called to burn down all churches in Arabia. Saudi textbooks call Jews the decendents of “apes and pigs.” Christians are forbidden from wearing crosses, building churches or bringing in Bibles.

How does the world react? Total surrender and utter appeasement. Diplomats pay lip service to human rights while tens of billions of dollars in arms are shipped to the Kingdom of Hate. The King is lavished with praise.

The Saudi government, meanwhile, could not get more condescending. They lie through their teeth, confident that no one will lift a finger against them. The Saudi ambassador to the UN, Walid al Muallami, told hundreds of students at New York University that his country had no repression at all and is a “land of opportunity” for everyone. Sure, as long as you’re not gay, a woman, secular, Christian, Jewish, Shiite, liberal, dissident, atheist or a democrat.

No Saudi diplomat should be able to leave his embassy without being confronted with Badawy's name.

One of the main excuses for supporting Saudi Arabia is that they are needed to combat Iran. Relying on one hate-mongering, xenophobic tyranny to combat another is a very bad bet. Iran is undoubtedly one of the most dangerous regimes on Earth and the free world must apply enormous pressure against it, but backing Saudi Arabia is not the answer. Iran can be undermined without relying on the Kingdom of Hate.

I am told over and over that Saudi Arabia has no liberals. It is true that Saudi culture is deeply conservative and liberalism is not exactly teeming over. But what are democracies doing to support those few Saudi democrats who risk life and limb for a more tolerant future? The answer is next to nothing.

The leaders of the free world have abandoned Saudi liberals, but you need not. Raif Badawy’s wife posted on Movements.org, Advancing Human Rights’ new crowd-sourcing platform, to alert the world that her husband could die if the lashes continue. Global pressure led the Kingdom to postpone the lashes. But if his life is to be saved, much more must be done. No Saudi diplomat should be able to leave his embassy without being confronted with Badawy’s name.

Support for Saudi Arabia has come at an enormous cost. Tens of millions of children have been indoctrinated with hatred and bigotry. Extremist groups have been funded throughout the region. Liberals have been viciously cut down. Any semblance of Western credibility has crumbled as democracy activists see unceasing support for one of the most tyrannical regimes on the planet.

Ordinary people around the world should stand in solidarity with Badawy and the many other political prisoners in Saudi Arabia. It is not only a moral duty, it is a strategic opportunity. Empowering Arab liberals and reformers, abandoned for decades, is the only hope for a more stable and peaceful Middle East.

KING ABDULLAH, A FEMINIST? DON’T MAKE ME LAUGH

King Abdullah, a feminist? Don’t make me laugh
Christine Lagarde has praised the Saudi despot’s contribution to women’s rights. But his record was dismal and the more we shout about it, the better

By Anne Perkins
The Guardian
January 23, 2015

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/23/king-abdullah-feminist-christine-lagarde-saudi-arabia-women

Christine Lagarde, the first woman to head the IMF, has paid tribute to the late King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. He was a strong advocate of women, she said. This is almost certainly not what she thinks. She even hedged her remarks about with qualifiers like “discreet” and “appropriate”. There are constraints of diplomacy and obligations of leadership and navigating between them can be fraught. But this time there was only one thing to say. Abdullah led a country that abuses women’s rights, and indeed all human rights, in a way that places it beyond normal diplomacy.

The constraints and restrictions on Saudi women are too notorious and too numerous to itemise. Right now, two women are in prison for the offence of trying to drive over the border in to Saudi Arabia. It is not just the ban on driving. There is also the ban on going out alone, the ban on voting, the death penalty for adultery, and the total obliteration of public personality – almost of a sense of existence – by the obligatory veil. And there are the terrible punishments meted out to those who infringe these rules that are not written down but “interpreted” – Islam mediated through the conventions of a deeply conservative people.

Lagarde is right. King Abdullah did introduce reforms. Women can now work almost anywhere they want, although their husband brother or father will have to drive them there (and the children to school). They can now not just study law but practise as lawyers. There are women on the Sharia council and it was through their efforts that domestic violence has been criminalised. But enforcement is in the hands of courts that do not necessarily recognise the change. These look like reforms with all the substance of a Potemkin village, a flimsy structure to impress foreign opinion.

Pressure for change is driven by women themselves, exploiting social media by actions that range from the small, brave actions of defiance – posting images of women at the wheel (ovaries, despite men’s fears, apparently undamaged) – to the large-scale subversive gesture such as the YouTube TV programmes reported by the Economist.

But the point about the Lagarde remarks is that there are signs the Saudi authorities really can be sensitive to the rare criticism that comes from western governments, and the western media. Such protests may yet spare blogger Raif Badawi from further punishment for alleged blasphemy. Today’s lashing has been delayed for the third successive week .The Saudi authorities, like any despotic regime, are trying to appease their critics and contain the pressure for change that social media generates by conceding inch by inch so that, like the slow downhill creep of a glacier, the religious authorities and mainstream social opinion don’t notice it is happening.

But beyond Saudi’s borders, it is surely the duty of everyone who really does believe in equality and human rights to shout and finger point and criticise at every opportunity. Failing to do so is what makes Christine Lagarde’s remarks a betrayal of the women who literally risk everything to try to bring about change in the oppressive patriarchy in which they live. They are typical of the desire not to offend the world’s biggest oil producer and the west’s key Middle Eastern ally, a self-censorship that allows the Saudis to claim they respect human rights while breaching every known norm of behaviour.

Until people like Lagarde abandon the relativist talk that allowed her to claim that Abdullah was a strong advocate for women “in a very discreet way”, or laud the benefits of “gradual” change that is “appropriate” for the country, and simply condemn what should be condemned, millions of women will go on living and dying for want of the most basic rights.

[Notes below by Tom Gross]

“JE SUIS RAIF BADAWI”

One lone marcher was seen sporting a “Je suis Raif Badawi” sticker at last Sunday’s mass freedom rally in Paris.

Today the young Saudi blogger Raif Badawi who dared call for freedom of speech in Saudi Arabia will be publicly flogged for the second Friday in row to mark the Muslim Holy Day. The whipping takes place after Friday prayers outside a mosque in the Red Sea coastal city of Jeddah.

Badawi was sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes with a whip, to be meted out over 20 consecutive Fridays.

His “crime” was to set up a website titled “Free Saudi Liberals” and call for democratic political reform.

The lack of punitive action by the U.S., Britain or any of Saudi Arabia’s western allies is deafening.

He has also been ordered to pay a fine of 1m Saudi riyals ($266,000), money he doesn’t have.

His case is part of a wider clampdown on dissent by the regime, and is being used as warning to anybody else calling for democracy.

“It is horrifying to think that such a vicious and cruel punishment should be imposed on someone who is guilty of nothing more than daring to create a public forum for discussion,” said Amnesty International in a statement.

Following the sentencing and threats against them, Badawi’s wife and children have been given political asylum in Canada.

His wife says her husband’s frail body may not be able physically to withstand a second round of 50 lashes.

Update: The Saudi authorities have just announced that they have “postponed” the next 50 lashes until next Friday.

HAMAS STUDENT BLOCK AT AL-QUDS UNIVERSITY USES U.S. GOVERNMENT MONEY TO INCITE ATTACKS

On January 12, in the wake of the Paris terrors attacks, the Hamas student block at Jerusalem’s Al-Quds University made this video, filmed in the university’s main entrance hall:

Brandeis University (the president of which subscribes to this email list) cut relations with Al-Quds University after this email list posted exclusive photos of a series of Fascistic rallies by students on campus, urging Jews to be killed.

However, America’s Bard college – using U.S. State Department sponsorship money through USAID – continues, in part, to finance Al-Quds University.

***

Update: The university authorities, once again trying to hide their activities from their American and Europe funders, have within the last few minutes (after I posted it on my website) removed the video, but PMW managed to make a back up copy here.

JEWISH SCHOOLS IN BELGIUM CLOSED; MOSSAD CONSULTED

For the first time since the Nazi era, Jewish schools in Brussels and Antwerp are closed today due to threats to kill Jewish children.

The decision was made by the Belgium authorities, together with the country’s Jewish communities and reportedly after consultation with the Israeli intelligence agency, the Mossad.

Around 40,000 Jews live in Belgium.

The move comes a day after Belgian police conducted an anti-terror operation in which two jihadists were shot dead in a gun battle in the town of Verviers, near Belgium’s border with Germany.

In nearby Amsterdam, a synagogue and a Jewish school have also been closed today.

In May 2014, an Islamist terrorist, Mehdi Nemmouche, who had also joined jihadist groups in Syria before returning to Europe, killed four Jews at the Brussels Jewish Museum.

In separate anti-terror raids this morning, Germany arrested two suspects said to be plotting an attack, and 12 people were detained in three different French towns on suspicion that they were linked to the Paris supermarket killer.

Hundreds of Berlin police raided 11 residences at dawn, arresting Turkish and Chechen national said to be plotting attacks.

In an unrelated raid, anti-terror police in Wolfsburg, about 200 km west of Berlin, arrested a 26-year-old German-Tunisian dual national this morning.

CNN reported that a Western intelligence source said the ongoing terror threat appears to involve up to 20 sleeper cells of between 120 to 180 people ready to strike in France, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands. EU and Middle East intelligence agencies identified an “imminent threat” to Belgium.

BRITISH MP SAYS NETANYAHU ATTENDING PARIS JEWISH MEMORIAL MADE HIM “SICK”

Calls are being made on the leader of the British Liberal Democrat party to expel its MP David Ward for saying it made him feel “sick” that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was allowed to attend the mass demonstration of unity against terrorism that was held in Paris on Sunday.

Last year, Ward said he would personally join Hamas in firing rockets at Israel’s civilian population. “We utterly condemn David Ward’s comments, they are not representative of the Liberal Democrats,” the party said in a statement at the time. “The party takes this matter very seriously and will treat it as a disciplinary issue.”

And last July, Ward wrote “Am I wrong or are am I right? – how long can the apartheid State of Israel last?”

Previously, Ward had angered the Jewish community by making what many said were anti-Semitic remarks in January 2013, on International Holocaust Memorial Day.

***

By contrast, leading (London) Daily Mail columnist Richard Littlejohn (who is a subscriber to this list) writes:

“What, however, were all those foreign presidents and prime ministers doing there? Showing solidarity is one thing, but this smacked of a synchronised selfie…

“The only foreign dignitary who had genuine reason to be on the march was the Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu. Jews were deliberately targeted by the terrorists in Paris, and Israel is on the frontline of the global jihad.

“It was curious, to say the least, to spot the Palestinian leader in the line-up. Mahmoud Abbas may preach peace, but the Palestinian territories are a haven and a breeding ground for terrorists who share the hardline beliefs of those maniacs who murdered 17 people in France.”

‘DO YOU WANT ME TO FINISH HIM OFF?’ AND THEN HE MADE HIMSELF A SANDWICH

The BBC and New York Times have downplayed, in much of their coverage, the fact that in his “martyrdom video,” released by his fellow Islamists after his death, Amedy Coulibaly made it absolutely clear he wanted to kill Jews as Jews and the attack had nothing to with the Palestinians.

And unlike CNN (who have reported this) the BBC failed to mention that the female employee of Charlie Hebdo who was called out by name by the terrorists, who knew she was Jewish, was executed because of this. The terrorists left all the other female staff (none of whom were Jewish) alone.

Last week, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter was provided a platform by the often anti-Israel host of the popular Daily Show to claim that the attacks on Charlie Hebdo were a result of “the Palestinian problem.”

***

In an interview with French publication Liberation, survivors of the kosher supermarket massacre said that Coulibaly was calm and collected as he committed the murders during the horrific seven-hour siege:

“One of the people he shot was still lying on the ground in agony and Coulibaly asked us ‘do you want me to finish him off?’ Then he spent half an hour toying with him before he finally died.”

Coulibaly told his hostages straight away who he was, one survivor said, “that he was the one who killed the policewoman in Montrouge, that he knew the Kouachi brothers well and had served in prison with them.”

“He told us he was doing this in the name of the Islamic State, [talked about] the caliphate and all that.

“I noticed he had a Go Pro with him and a laptop. He took out a memory card, put it in and seemed to be processing some photos on the screen.”

“He also had two AK-47s, two automatic handguns, a knife and some dynamite sticks, Coulibaly said ‘you see, I am well armed.’

“At one point, he browsed the aisles and made himself a little sandwich.

“Then he turned his attention to what was being said in the media, becoming very angry that news channels were not reporting that people were killed during the market take-over.

“‘What do you mean there’s no dead? They’re going to see if there aren’t any dead.’ It was then that he called BFM-TV and told them to change their headline.”

***

Lassana Bathily, 24, of Malian origin, who helped hide Jewish hostages including a three-year-old child, in the freezer, has been awarded French citizenship in recognition for his bravery. He has lived in France since 2006.

***

The four Jewish men who lost their lives in the terror attack were buried in Israel on Tuesday. Among other considerations, it was feared that had they been buried in France, their gravestones would have been defaced by anti-Semites.

In total 6 of the 17 persons killed in the Paris attacks were Jewish. Five of these Jews were from North Africa. The BBC and others didn’t mention this because they may prefer not to let people know there were Jewish refugees from Arab countries – such refugees and their descendants make up over half the Jewish population of Israel. It doesn’t fit the narrative by some journalists at BBC News that Jews and Israelis are not indigenous to the Middle East.

***

In a strongly worded speech to the country’s National Assembly, which has been underreported outside France, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls denounced the “new anti-Semitism”.

You may want to watch it here.

(I have previously noted that Valls has said that some of the “new anti-Semitism” masquerades itself as anti-Zionism.)

TURKISH PRESIDENT ACCUSES “THE WEST” OF BEING BEHIND CHARLIE HEBDO ATTACKS

The President of Turkey has suggested French security forces are to blame for the deadly terrorist attacks in Paris last week, alleging the culprits were recently released from French prisons to carry out the massacres.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused “the West” of “playing games with the Islamic world,” warning fellow Muslims to be “aware”.

Despite President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron having launched their terms of office by making charm offenses towards Erdogan, he has responded with a string of anti-Western and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, of which this is only the latest.

IRAN’S PRESS TV: CIA BEHIND THE PARIS ATTACKS

Iran’s Press TV (which regularly invents things about Israel and the U.S.) reports:

Paris attack designed to shore up France’s vassal status

A former White House official says the terrorist attack that killed 12 people in Paris was a false flag operation “designed to shore up France’s vassal status to Washington.”

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, who was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal, made the remarks in an article published on Thursday.

“The suspects can be both guilty and patsies. Just remember all the terrorist plots created by the FBI that served to make the terrorism threat real to Americans,” he wrote.

He said that the French economy is suffering from the US-imposed sanctions against Russia. “Shipyards are impacted from being unable to deliver Russian orders due to France’s vassalage status to Washington, and other aspects of the French economy are being adversely impacted by sanctions that Washington forced its NATO puppet states to apply to Russia.”

ON FRANCE 24, BUT CENSORED BY THE BBC

Drawings of the prophet Mohammed have been made by Muslim artists over many centuries.

But when will the BBC tell viewers and listeners this, as France’s national network France 24 has done, showing such pictures even on its Arabic language service here.

Some years ago, I posted a compilation of some beautiful historic drawings of Mohammed on my website, if you scroll down here.

SKY NEWS CUTS OFF WRITER LIVE ON AIR FOR TRYING TO DISPLAY CHARLIE HEBDO

Britain’s international broadcaster Sky News, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch (although he exercises no editorial control) has bowed to the demands of Islamic extremists and cut short an interview with French journalist and feminist Caroline Fourest when she held up a copy of Charlie Hebdo.

Fourest said: “I am very sad, very sad that journalists in the UK do not support us. That journalists in the UK betray what journalism is about. By thinking that people cannot be grown up enough to decide if a drawing is offensive…. [It] is completely crazy that in the UK you cannot show a simple drawing.”

***

Among recent related dispatches: BBC prevents Israeli minister from showing photos of Jewish victims.

TURKEY RAIDS PAPER PRINTING CHARLIE HEBDO SOLIDARITY EDITION

NBC News reports that “Police raided the printing plant of a Turkish newspaper [Cumhuriyet] which was producing excerpts of the special edition of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo… [even though] the Turkish version of the publication did not include any images of Muhammad.”

As I have noted before on this list, Turkey is one of the worst countries in the world for jailing journalists.

However, President Erdogan said in a televised speech to a conference in Ankara in December: “Nowhere in the world is the press freer than it is in Turkey. I’m very sure of myself when I say this. The press is so free in Turkey that one can make insults, slander, defamation, racism and commit hate crimes that are not tolerated even in democratic countries.”

***

Some British universities are also banning Charlie Hebdo. For example, here at Bristol University.

THE CHARLIE HEBDO CARTOONS NO ONE IS SHOWING YOU

Here.

“WE ARE ALL ISIS”

This important piece has now been translated from the original Arabic and published in the English language version of the Beirut publication Now Lebanon (the editor of which subscribes to this list and sent it to me to share with readers). The editor is a Shia Muslim.

We are all ISIS
These killers are us. They are our religion at its most extreme.
By Nadim Koteich

Condemnations are no longer sufficient. They were never enough in the first place … The people from the Sunni camp of contemporary Islam who carried out the Charlie Hebdo massacre, the Pakistani school massacre before it, the massacres by ISIS in Syria and Iraq, the 9/11 attacks and other atrocities all belong to true Islam. The same applies to the people in the Shiite camp of contemporary Islam who kidnapped and killed foreign journalists in Beirut, and issued and renewed the fatwa that said the blood of British writer Salman Rushdie could be spilt. They are a central part of true Islam and its many schools of jurisprudence.

It doesn’t matter which Islamic text, whether it is a Qur’anic or jurisprudential text, or a text recounting the sayings of the Prophet Mohammad; the killers do not kill for nothing, they kill in the name of books, fatwas, ayahs and age-old tradition. All of these things are inseparable parts of true Islam. They will remain Muslims as long as they pronounce the shahada and as long as the religious institution doesn’t dare to modernize the criteria for being a Muslim.

These killers are us. They are our religion at its most extreme. They are our true Islam taken to its furthest extent and they are not beyond the scripture. If the West says in one united voice “we are Charlie” we should say “we are ISIS.” …

As Muslims, what should we do with the 20th verse of Surat at-Tawbah, which is dedicated to our relationship with Christians and Jews? The text is as follows:

“Fight those who do not believe in God or in the Last Day and who do not consider unlawful what God and His Messenger have made unlawful and who do not adopt the religion of truth from those who were given the Scripture - [fight] until they give the jizyah willingly while they are humbled.” …

It was very telling that straight after the announcement of the Charlie Hebdo massacre people’s thoughts turned to Islamist extremists, despite the fact that the French magazine’s satire spared not Judaism, Christianity nor the French political establishment. This is because Islam’s relationship with the present is in crisis, and any group going through such a crisis is always the first suspect. In fact, Islam as a whole stands accused in advance, and not only its extremist fringe. The original texts that form an inseparable part of true Islam and inspire the ongoing crimes committed in its name are also guilty. This will be true as long as there is no central authority to reorganize the relationship between the Islamic text, as a piece of history, and the necessities of the present day, in the same way the Qur’anic text itself acclimatized as the ayahs were gradually sent down, with some new rulings replacing older ones.

The truth is that what the killers did in Paris has only reinforced the images drawn by the artists of Charlie Hebdo. The only difference between the actions of the artists and the killers is that the number of people who follow caricatures is far less than those who followed the international drama caused by the massacre. Nothing can insult Islam and Muslims as much as such crimes, and yet we still make do with saying that they do not represent true Islam, without providing a clear description of what true Islam is, beginning with our religious schools, some of which are factories for crime, to our constitutions which are rigged with the mines of Islamic jurisprudence and Sharia law.

Nothing insults Islam more than the Charlie Hebdo massacre, which says, from the belly of true Islam itself: Those of us who love the Prophet most are our greatest criminals.

Full piece here.

“HE REFUSED TO CONTINUE UNLESS ALL MENTION OF THIS WAS WIPED FROM THE RECORDING. THE BBC TEAM AGREED.”

Douglas Murray, writing in the British magazine The Spectator, says:

“The night after the Charlie Hebdo atrocities I was pre-recording a Radio 4 programme. My fellow discussant was a very nice Muslim man who works to ‘de-radicalise’ extremists. We agreed on nearly everything. But at some point he said that one reason Muslims shouldn’t react to such cartoons is that Mohammed never objected to critics.

There may be some positive things to be said about Mohammed, but I thought this was pushing things too far and mentioned just one occasion when Mohammed didn’t welcome a critic. Asma bint Marwan was a female poetess who mocked the ‘Prophet’ and who, as a result, Mohammed had killed. It is in the texts. It is not a problem for me. But I can understand why it is a problem for decent Muslims. The moment I said this, my Muslim colleague went berserk. How dare I say this? I replied that it was in the Hadith and had a respectable chain of transmission (an important debate). He said it was a fabrication which he would not allow to stand. The upshot was that he refused to continue unless all mention of this was wiped from the recording. The BBC team agreed and I was left trying to find another way to express the same point. The broadcast had this ‘offensive’ fact left out.

I cannot imagine another religious discussion where this would happen, but it is perfectly normal when discussing Islam. On that occasion I chose one case, but I could have chosen many others, such as the hundreds of Jews Mohammed beheaded with his own hand. Again, that’s in the mainstream Islamic sources. I haven’t made it up. It used to be a problem for Muslims to rationalise, but now there are people trying to imitate such behaviour in our societies it has become a problem for all of us, and I don’t see why people in the free world should have to lie about what we read in historical texts.”

ADL: OBAMA NEEDS TO IDENTIFY WHO THE ENEMY IS OTHERWISE WE’LL LOSE

ADL national director Abe Foxman, who is usually a staunch defender of President Obama, told Haaretz this week:

“If President Obama, refuses to explicitly identify the enemy as ‘radical Islam,’ then it’s a war that can’t be won. If Obama cannot articulate the words ‘radical Islam’, then it’s a lost cause. If we cannot articulate what it is then we won’t be able to deal with it either.”

Many critics on right and left have denounced Obama for his repeated reluctance to identify who carried out attacks, as well as for his decision not to join other world leaders at last Sunday’s rally in Paris, or even to send Vice-President Joe Biden, who has a relatively free schedule.

CAFE OWNER IN LONDON FACES DEATH THREATS OVER ‘JE SUIS CHARLIE’ SIGN

Adel Defilaux, who is a French-born Muslim originally from Marseille, has received death threats from other Muslims for displaying a “Je suis Charlie” sign outside his cafe in Brick Lane, a well-known street in East London.

His cafe offers free coffee to the homeless.

ISRAEL ERASED FROM SOCCER HISTORY

The official video of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) showcasing the past winners of the Asian Cup has removed Israel from the pages of the tournament’s history.

The video, “History of the AFC Asian Cup: 1956-2011,” which is on the AFC’s official YouTube channel and was shown at the opening ceremony of the tournament in Melbourne, Australia last week, shows 14 of the 15 previous winners, with only Israel missing. Israel won the cup in 1964.

Australian Jewish groups are calling on the Football Federation of Australia (FFA) to raise the matter with the AFC and the world governing body FIFA.

See also: Football killing fields. International soccer singles out Israel.

AND ON A LIGHTER NOTE…

Rhinos escape from snoozing guard at Israeli zoo – video here.

[Notes below by Tom Gross]

SON OF THE CHIEF RABBI OF TUNIS AMONG THOSE KILLED

The four Jews murdered in cold blood in Paris yesterday have just been named:

Yohan Cohen, aged 22
Yoav Hattab, aged 21
Phillipe Barham, aged in his 40s
François-Michel Saada, aged in his 60s

Several other shoppers at the Kosher supermarket remain hospitalized in serious condition.

Yoav Hattab is the son of the Chief Rabbi of Tunis.

The French authorities respected requests by the Jewish community that the names only be released at the end of the Jewish Sabbath.

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said he will travel to Paris this evening to represent Israel at tomorrow’s rally in solidarity with the victims of last week’s attacks in France.

The French community in Tel Aviv said they will hold a candle-lit memorial for the victims of the terror attacks in France, tonight in central Tel Aviv.

MUSLIM EMPLOYEE SAVED JEWS DURING SUPERMARKET SIEGE

A Muslim employee of the kosher market (Lassana Bathily, 24,) is being hailed as a hero after he hid people, including a baby, in the freezer during the 7-hour siege. Bathily quietly led people don the stair to the basement and hid them in het freezer.

Several of those held in subzero temperatures needed to receive medical treatment afterwards, but they survived.

OFFENSIVE IMAGES THE NEW YORK TIMES WASN’T AFRAID TO PUBLISH

The executive editor of The New York Times, Dean Baquet, has defended his decision not to reprint any Charlie Hebdo cartoons depicting Mohammad (even the most benign ones), by telling Politico: “We don’t run things that are designed to gratuitously offend.”

Not for the first time, a senior New York Times journalist is being less than honest.

Here is one of the vile anti-Semitic cartoons the New York Times has republished, causing great anguish to many Holocaust survivors.

Here is another anti-Semitic cartoon in the New York Times.

The Gawker website (whose owner is a subscriber to this list) has rounded up some further cartoons the New York Times have printed which are highly offensive to African-Americans, Asian people and Christians:

CHARLIE HEBDO AND KOSHER TERROR MENTOR’S WIFE LIVES RENT FREE ON UK GOVERNMENT BENEFITS

The British government is reportedly paying the family of the terrorist mentor of Amedy Coulibaly, who executed Jewish shoppers in Paris yesterday. He is also the mentor of one of the Charlie Hebdo killers. (This is comparable to the way they and other European Governments have ended up funding the families of Palestinian terrorists, through misdirected aid to the Palestinian Authority.)

The (London) Daily Telegraph reports today:

“The wife of an al-Qaeda lynchpin who mentored the Charlie Hebdo murderers is living on benefits in Britain after deciding France was too strict against Muslims.

“Sylvie Beghal, a French citizen, lives rent free in a four bedroom house in Leicester after she left her home country with her children in search of a more ‘Islamic environment’.

“She is married to Djamel Beghal, a former London-based lieutenant of Abu Hamza whose teachings are thought to have inspired the Paris attacks. At least two of the suspected gunmen responsible for the killings were Beghal’s disciples, it has emerged.

“… One of the Kouachi brothers, 32-year-old Cherif, was recruited by Beghal in prison ten years ago while both were serving sentences for terror offences.

“Amedy Coulbaly and his girlfriend Hayat Boumeddiene, suspected of murdering a policewoman and holding hostages in a Jewish grocery store, were also mentored by Beghal. According to Le Monde, the pair visited the militant in 2010 in Cantal, southern France, where he was under house arrest.

“… In a court case in the UK Beghal was once described as being so extreme that Osama Bin Laden considered him ‘beyond the pale’.”

40 PERCENT OF ALL VIOLENT RACIST ATTACKS IN FRANCE LAST YEAR WERE AGAINST JEWS

I note in one of my dispatches last week, that 7000 Jews had emigrated form France to Israel last year, a record number.

What I didn’t mention is that over 100,000 other Jews made enquiries last year about leaving, according to the Jewish Agency, as anti-Semitic attacks continue on a weekly basis. I have reported about a number of them on this list, but they are generally not reported on outside the Jewish or Israeli media. Some have been particularly horrific – for example, the rape of a woman in her home last month while her boyfriend was locked in the next room by a Muslim gang that told the couple they “wanted to rape a Jew”.

A survey last year found that France had more violent anti-Semitic incidents in 2013 than any other country in the world. Jews were the targets of 40 percent of all racist crimes in France in 2013 – even though they comprise less than 1 percent of the population.

SOME MUSLIMS AND CHRISTIANS ADOPT THE JE SUIS JUIF HASHTAG

The hashtag, #JeSuisJuif (I am Jewish), modeled after the #JeSuisCharlie (I am Charlie) hashtag is being used on twitter by a few Muslims and Christians as well as many Jews, reports the Jerusalem Post.

“HOW DARE SO MANY EUROPEANS STILL WONDER WHY ISRAEL NEEDS TO EXIST”

For many hours after France’s President Hollande denounced yesterday’s massacre as “an appalling anti-Semitic attack”, many BBC reporters seemed to do everything they could to ignore or downplay the anti-Semitic nature of the attack on the kosher supermarket. It was a well-planned attack and the target was carefully chosen.

The BBC and other media have, once again (as I have pointed out in the past), failed to give any context to the fact that Al-Qaeda almost always picks soft Jewish targets alongside a more military/ governmental / media target -- as they did in the attacks during the last decade in Istanbul, Djerba, Mumbai, Kenya, Morocco, Toulouse and elsewhere. (If you can’t recall this attacks, you can read about them be searching here: http://www.tomgrossmedia.com )

As Douglas Murray (who like Brendan O’Neill, quoted below, is a non-Jewish British subscriber to this list), said yesterday in relation to the attack on the kosher supermarket:

“In France, Belgium and across Europe in recent years, Jews have repeatedly been the targets of Islamist attack. They always are. Last year saw the largest upsurge of anti-Semitic hate crime on record even in the UK.

“In 2008 when Mumbai was attacked, the Islamic terrorists rampaged through that great Indian city. But they specially sought out the tiny Chabad house in Mumbai and there they slaughtered the young rabbi and his wife. It is the same story everywhere.

“The question is this: How dare so many Europeans still wonder why Israel needs to exist. Today Israel is the world’s only really safe haven for Jews who live in a world which cannot keep them safe, even when it wants to.”

CLOSED FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE THE NAZIS OVERRAN PARIS

The Grand Synagogue of Paris was shuttered for Shabbat services for the first time since the Nazis overran France's capital.

Instead of the authorities ordering the synagogue closed, President Hollande should have attended services there as a mark of solidarity.

BBC TO REVIEW MOHAMMED IMAGE ‘BAN’

The Huffington Post reports:

BBC To Review Mohammad Image ‘Ban’ After David Dimbleby Claims It Has Policy Against Showing Prophet

The BBC says it is reviewing its editorial guidelines after presenter David Dimbleby claimed the broadcaster has a policy not to depict the prophet - despite the BBC itself showing an image of Muhammad.

The 10pm BBC news programme on Thursday night showed a cover of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo featuring the prophet Muhammad, as part of its coverage on the murder of 12 people at the magazine’s offices and the manhunt for the suspects that followed.

Yet in the BBC current affairs programme Question Time - aired directly afterwards on BBC One - presenter David Dimbleby said that it was the corporation’s policy not to show images of Muhammad in any form.

24 FRONT COVERS FROM AROUND THE WORLD

Here.

“ISLAMOPHOBIA IS A MYTH”

Brendan O’Neill (who is a British subscriber to this list) writes yesterday:

Islamophobia Is a Myth
Why do liberals fear the working class and ignore anti-Semitic murder? Because they are bigots.
By Brendan O’Neill
January 9, 2015

He says: “Islamophobia is a myth. Sure, some folks in Europe and elsewhere no doubt dislike Muslims, just as other losers hate the Irish or blacks or women. But the idea that there is a climate of Islamophobia, a culture of hot-headed, violent-minded hatred for Muslims that could be awoken and unleashed by the next terror attack, is an invention. Islamophobia is a code word for mainstream European elites’ fear of their own populations, of their native hordes, whom they imagine to be unenlightened, prejudiced, easily led by the tabloid media, and given to outbursts of spite and violence.”

Full piece here.

Tom Gross adds: Certainly there is some Islamophobia. However, I find it disturbing that almost from the moment that there was an attack by Muslim extremists on the Charlie Hebdo office, the BBC has been interviewing Muslims about how there might be a potential backlash against the Muslim community. But when Jews are held hostage and actually killed in a kosher supermarket, the BBC hardly interviewed anyone about the very real anti-Semitism that is raging across Europe, leading to (in 2014) a record number of Jews fleeing France for Israel, and a record number of anti-Semitic attacks in the UK.

REMEMBERING ILAN HALIMI

As the world media still fails to make the link between Islamic extremism and anti-Semitism, it is worth remembering Ilan Halimi.

Ilan Halimi was kidnapped by an Islamist gang who said they wanted to kill a Jew. He was found naked, handcuffed, gagged, hooded and starved, with severe burns, cuts and torture marks all over his body.

http://www.tomgrossmedia.com/IlanHalimi.html

http://www.tomgrossmedia.com/mideastdispatches/archives/000645.html

*** The last dispatch was not received by some people because of email problems. You can read and view it here:

The future of free speech?

[Notes below by Tom Gross]

WIDE-RANGING POLL FINDS BOTH JEWS AND ARABS “PROUD TO BE ISRAELI”

The extensive annual poll by the Israel Democracy Institute (a reliable centrist NGO) has found that both Israeli Jews and Arabs are proud to be Israeli. The annual poll is used by both Israel and the international community as a barometer of Israeli public opinion.

This year’s poll found that 86% of Israeli Jews and 65% of Israeli Arabs said they were either “very” or “quite proud” to be Israeli. Only 13% of Jews and 34% of Arabs said they were “not so proud” or “not proud at all” to be Israeli.

When asked which institutions they trusted the most, Israeli Jews said the IDF (88%), the Israeli president (71%) and the Supreme Court (62%).

The least trusted institutions are the Knesset (35%), Chief Rabbinate (29%) and the media (28%).

Among Israeli Arabs, the most trusted institutions are the Supreme Court (60%), the police (57%), the Israeli president (56%) and, perhaps surprisingly, the IDF (51%).

THE GUARDIAN CHOOSES ISRAELI PRESIDENT RIVLIN AS A “HERO” OF 2014

The British daily The Guardian, which (unlike the BBC) has been on somewhat of a charm offensive for the past year to try and water down its previously over-the-top criticism of Israel, has included Israeli President Reuven Rivlin in its annual list of “heroes” of the year for 2014. It called Rivlin (a rightist member of the Likud) “Israel’s conscience.”

The paper applauded Rivlin for “standing up for the civil rights of Palestinians” and condemning what The Guardian called “surging bigotry” in Israel.

“Rivlin’s office may be ceremonial; his stand is anything but,” the paper said.

The Guardian pointed to Rivlin’s 2014 Rosh Hashanah video in which he appeared beside an Arab Israeli boy from Jaffa as part of an anti-bullying campaign.

In the video, filmed in the wake of heightened tensions at the end of last summer’s war with Hamas, Rivlin was seen holding up placards denouncing intolerance in Israeli society.

Other “heroes” in The Guardian’s list include Pope Francis.

DESPITE GAZA WAR, TOURIST NUMBERS TO ISRAEL FELL ONLY 1% IN 2014

A record 14.2 million passengers passed through Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion International Airport in 2014.

And the number of foreign visitors to Israel last year declined by just 1% despite the summer war with Hamas and the 24/7 sensational international media coverage of it.

Both before and after the war, tourist traffic was higher than in any previous year, according to the Israel Hotels Association and the Israel Ministry of Tourism.

The largest number of foreign visitors came from the United States, followed by Russia, France, Germany and Britain. Jerusalem was the top destination for visitors, followed by Tel Aviv and the Dead Sea.

Many Russian and other tourists are now avoiding Egypt because of political violence there and have switched their vacations to Israel.

EGYPT CHAMBER OF TOURISM: HOTEL OCCUPANCY REACHED ONLY 12% BY NEW YEAR

The Egypt Independent reports.

“Hotel occupancy rates in the cities of Taba and Nuweiba ranged between 6-12 percent by the New Year, except for one hotel whose occupancy reached around 60 percent, according to the Egyptian Federation of Chamber of Tourism.

“Atef Abdel Latif, a member of the federation, said that such rates indicate a catastrophe for hoteliers, as they do not cover their workforce and other costs.”

Tom Gross adds: Political violence between Islamist groups and the Egyptian military continues to rage in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, largely unreported in the Western media.

NUMBER OF SUICIDE BOMBINGS WORLDWIDE SURGED 94% IN 2014 BUT NONE IN ISRAEL

The number of suicide bombings globally almost doubled last year, according to a comprehensive new report by the Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies.

At least 3,400 people were killed in such attacks in 2014, compared with 2,200 in 2013. There were 592 suicide bombings, compared with 305 in 2013.

The figures are likely an under-estimate because the INSS said it had been very conservative in assessing suicide bombs in Syria. “Reports from Syria are often based on reports from the organizations behind the attacks, which often exaggerate. The authors say they have included “only attacks whose details could be verified,” the report said.

Most suicide bombs were carried out by Muslims against other Muslims. “The claim [made on the New York Times op-ed page -- TG] that most suicide bombings are carried out against foreign occupiers has been proved false once again,” the INSS says.

Only 3 percent of all suicide bombings were carried out against foreign armies.

The countries with the most suicide bombings in 2014 were Iraq, Yemen, Syria, Lebanon and Libya. There was also a rise in attacks in African countries such as Somalia and Nigeria.

Fifteen suicide bombings in 2014 were carried out by women, compared with five in 2013.

There were no deadly suicide bombings in Israel or the Palestinian territories last year.

U.S. ACADEMIC GROUP VOTES AGAINST FURTHER ANTI-ISRAEL RESOLUTIONS

Bucking the trend of American academics voting for various (largely symbolic) boycotts of Israel, the American Historical Association has voted 144 to 55 against any further pursuit of resolutions that denounce Israel.

The Jerusalem Post reports: “The American Historical Association, a scholarly group, declined to put two resolutions critical of Israel to a vote at its annual meeting in New York over the weekend, one year after the American Studies Association joined an academic boycott of Israel.”

The Jerusalem Post points out: “There was no mention of incitement on Palestinian campuses in the resolutions. Last year, hundreds of masked protesters marched through Al-Quds University’s campus wearing black ski masks and carrying replicas of rockets, according to photos posted on the website of independent journalist Tom Gross and on the Facebook page of the Islamic Bloc of Al-Quds University student group, which is associated with Hamas.

“A rally in support of Islamic Jihad on the Al-Quds campus in November 2013 led to the suspension of ties between Al-Quds University and Brandeis University.

“A professor at the Palestinian university quit following a campaign of harassment and death threats after he took students to visit the Auschwitz death camp in Poland last year.”

NORWEGIAN NGO FUNDS EXHIBIT OF CHILDREN’S MAPS REPLACING ISRAEL WITH PALESTINE

The Norwegian People’s Aid NGO, which is funded by the Norwegian Foreign Ministry and the Canadian International Development Agency, has produced maps for Middle East schoolchildren that replace Israel with “Palestine”.

Another map displays the Israeli cities of Beersheba, Acre, Haifa and Safed as being in Palestine.

http://borjcamp.com/?p=46522

Last week, a subsidiary of U.S. publisher Harper Collins apologized after omitting Israel from maps in its Middle East Atlas. It said it would withdraw remaining copies from sale and pulp the rest.

JEWS FLEE FRANCE IN RECORD NUMBERS TO ESCAPE ANTI-SEMITISM

For the first time since Israel’s independence in 1948, France topped the list of countries from which immigrants moved to Israel. At least 7,000 French Jews moved to Israel last year, double the number in 2013. The Times of London reported that many cited a wave of anti-Semitic attacks in France as the reason for their move.

DIEUDONNE’S SUPPORTERS TURN AGAINST HIM

Updating previous dispatch notes about the French anti-Semitic “comedian”:

Some black supporters of Dieudonné, the black, anti-Semitic “comedian” who invented a new form of “Nazi” salute to avoid prosecution under laws banning race hate, have turned against him. They are unhappy with his increasingly close connections with white, racist, groups in France. Dieudonné is cozying up to leading white French anti-Semites, such as Alain Soral, who hates black people almost as much as he hates Jews.

When BBC Newsnight interviewed Soral in an item about Dieudonne they simply called Soral a “filmmaker” and failed to mentioned who he really is.

ANTI-SEMITIC ACTS IN UK AT 30-YEAR HIGH; BDS ACTIVIST IN UK MAKES NAZI SALUTE

Anti-Semitic incidents in Britain are at their highest level since comprehensive records began to be collated 30 years ago, reports the (London) Daily Telegraph.

The Community Security Trust reports that there were over 1,000 anti-Semitic incidents in 2014, including 302 in July alone, when in the midst of the Gaza conflict, many anti-Israel protests quickly turned anti-Semitic.

Last month, the director of BBC TV, Danny Cohen said he has never felt so uncomfortable being a Jew in Britain as in 2014. For more (including my quote) see here.

Last week, Tristan Woodwards, a leading British activist of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign was pictured giving a Nazi salute outside the Israeli-owned Kedem cosmetics store on King Street, in the center of the northern English city of Manchester.

JEWISH GROUPS CONDEMN PRO-NAZI RALLIES IN CROATIA, UKRAINE

Jewish groups have strongly condemned the memorial mass held in the center of Zagreb to commemorate Croatian war criminal Ante Pavelić, the so-called “Hitler of the Balkans”.

Pavelić, the founder of the Ustasha, oversaw the murder of hundreds of thousands of Jews, Roma and Serb civilians in World War Two. Many were subjected to horrific torture before being killed, including Jewish babies who were thrown in the air and shot in front of their parents. At least 100,000 were murdered in Jasenovac, the so-called “Auschwitz of the Balkans.”

Leading Nazi-hunter Efraim Zuroff, said: “It is hard to believe that in the center of the capital of a member of the European Union, very close to Zagreb’s Jewish community, hundreds of people gathered yesterday to commemorate the memory of one of Europe’s biggest mass murderers. Such a ceremony is an insult to the memory of Pavelić’s hundreds of thousands of innocent victims. It is also a badge of shame for the Catholic Church, which allowed such a ceremony to take place in the Basilica of the Heart of Christ.”

After the war, Pavelic escaped to Argentina with the help of the Austrian bishop Alois Hudal. He was wounded in an assassination attempt in 1957, and died in Madrid two years later while under the protection of the Franco regime.

***

Jewish groups have also condemned the pro-Fascist marches in Ukraine on January 1.

A new year’s torchlight parade organized by the Fascist Svoboda party honored the Holocaust era-Ukrainian ultra-nationalist leader Stepan Bandera. The rally took place in Khreshchatyk Street, one of Kiev’s main boulevards and the site of some of last year’s EuroMaidan revolution, to celebrate the 106th birthday of Stepan Bandera, whose faction of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists helped murder tens of thousands of Jews during the Second World War.

Bandera escaped after the war and was assassinated in Munich in 1959.

NAZIS’ VAST, SECRET “NUCLEAR WEAPONS FACILITY” UNCOVERED IN AUSTRIA

A huge, secret, underground Nazi weapons factory, believed to have been built for the development and planned manufacture of nuclear weapons and other WMDs, has been uncovered in Austria, London’s Sunday Times reported two days ago.

The vast weapons facility was uncovered last week near the town of St. Georgen an der Gusen by a team led by Austrian documentary-maker Andreas Sulzer, who said it was “likely the biggest secret weapons production facility of the Third Reich.” The 75-acre industrial complex is located close to a second subterranean factory, the B8 Bergkristall facility where the Messerschmitt Me 262, the world’s first operational jet-powered fighter, was produced toward the end of World War II.

“Declassified intelligence documents as well as testimony from witnesses helped excavators identify the concealed entrance,” the Sunday Times said.

“The facility, like the Bergkristall factory, relied on slave labor from the nearby Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp,” the Sunday Times added. “Up to 320,000 inmates are said to have died because of the brutal conditions in the subterranean labyrinth.”

“Prisoners from concentration camps across Europe were handpicked for their special skills – physicists, chemists or other experts – to work on this monstrous project,” Sulzer told the British newspaper, “and we owe it to the victims to finally open the site and reveal the truth.”

Sulzer, whose work is being partly funded by German state TV network ZDF, is also seeking to establish what became of SS General Hans Kammler, who managed the project and reported to SS chief Heinrich Himmler.

“Rumors persist that he was captured by the Americans and given a new identity after the war [and taken to the U.S. to help work on programs there],” the paper reported.

[Notes below by Tom Gross]

ISRAELI NGO FILES WAR CRIMES CHARGES AGAINST PALESTINIAN LEADERS AT ICC

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s controversial move last week to join the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, and seek to prosecute Israelis there, has also exposed Palestinian leaders to war crime charges. And an Israeli NGO Shurat HaDin (“the Israel Law Center”) is doing just that.

Yesterday Shurat HaDin filed lawsuits at the ICC against three Palestinian Authority leaders – Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah, Abbas’s deputy; minister Jibril Rajoub, and intelligence chief Majed Faraj – for “war crimes, terrorism and human rights offenses”.

All three are members of Abbas’s Fatah party and serve in his regime.

The Israeli NGO pointed out that during last summer’s Israel-Gaza conflict, “Fatah openly boasted in media channels that it launched rockets that caused the injury and death of Israeli civilians – a war crime under international law.”

(Tom Gross: Most rocket attacks from Gaza came from Hamas or Islamic Jihad, but Fatah also launched rockets at Israeli civilians from Gaza.)

“Abbas and his friends in terror organizations believe that the courts can be used as a weapon against Israel, while at the same time, the Palestinian leadership carries out crimes with utter impunity against their own people and against Israeli civilians,” Shurat HaDin’s chairwoman, attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner said.

The case brought against the three Palestinians leaders lists widespread torture and killings of Palestinian civilians who dare to oppose Abbas’s authoritarian rule.

The ICC can prosecute individuals accused of crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide, committed since July 1, 2002, when the court’s founding treaty, the Rome Statute, came into force.

FATAH: NETANYAHU WILL HANG “SOON”

The Western-backed and funded Palestinian Fatah party has suggested that the democratically elected prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, will be hanged by the International Criminal Court.

You can see a montage of Netanyahu with a noose dangling in front of him produced on the official Facebook page here:

http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=13603

The image of the noose and Netanyahu, together with the logo of the ICC, also appears on the official Fatah website with the phrase “coming soon.”

Israel has long accused Palestinian groups, including the governing Fatah party, of inciting to kill Israelis and Jews.

FATAH DISTANCES ITSELF FROM LATEST “GENOCIDAL, ANTI-SEMITIC” FACEBOOK POST

Following criticism on CNN, Fatah has distanced itself from an image of skulls adorned with Jewish stars of David that was post to its Facebook page.

The image, posted last week to mark Fatah’s 50th anniversary, displayed a rifle, the Fatah flag and the words “lingering on your skulls.” It showed a pile of skulls marked with Jewish stars of David.

But after a CNN anchor asked a Fatah spokesman about the image on Friday, Fatah distanced itself from it in a statement (in English though not in Arabic). Unsurprisingly, the BBC hasn’t reported on this at all.

As reported in previous dispatches last year, Fatah was criticized after the kidnapping and subsequent murder of three Israeli teenagers last summer, when its webpage displayed a cartoon depicting the kidnapped teens as rats caught on a fishing line.

You can see the cartoon here: Fatah mocks kidnapped boys as rats (while Abbas’s wife treated in Israeli hospital) (June 16, 2014).

WHY RETROACTIVE TO JUNE 13? BECAUSE THEY KIDNAPPED THE TEENS ON JUNE 12

This leading blogger points out:

http://elderofziyon.blogspot.co.il/2015/01/why-is-palestines-icc-application.html#.VKt_c2TF-QM

“Here is the letter from Mahmoud Abbas to the ICC. Why is the application requesting it to be effective retroactively to June 13, 2014?

“Because on June 12, 2014, Palestinian terrorists kidnapped and murdered three Israeli teens, Naftali Fraenkel, Gilad Shaer, and Eyal Yifrah, which is a war crime under the Rome Statute…

“The exact same thing was done by William Schabas, chair of the UNHRC investigation into the events of last summer – a mandate that explicitly excludes the kidnapping of the three Israeli teens but that includes Israel’s response to the kidnappings by choosing to only investigate events from June 13th.”

**

Tom Gross adds: Members of Congress say that using their tax-money to introduce war crimes charges at the ICC against America’s Israeli allies, may be the last straw and that they will soon stop Washington’s annual $400 million aid to the Palestinian Authority.

* Firebomb attack victim Ayala Shapira (aged 11), who I referred to in a previous dispatch, has woken up and has been able to speak with her family. She was critically wounded in a firebomb attack just before Christmas, while she was returning home after an extra-curricular math class. Her condition remains life-threatening such is the extent of her burns, according to doctors.

“PALESTINE TO JOIN INTERPOL”

The Palestinian Maan News Agency reports that “Palestinian authorities have decided to join the International Criminal Police Organization, widely known as Interpol, an official revealed Saturday.”

Some observers have expressed surprise that the Palestinian Authority wants to join the world’s prime organization for fighting cross-border crimes and terrorism, pointing out that arrest warrants may be issued against Palestinian officials and fugitive Palestinian terrorists.

IRAN CLAIMS TO “BUILDS WORLD’S FIRST MISSILE-EVADING DRONE”

Iran’s Fars news agency (FNA) claimed yesterday that:

“An Iranian expert has built the world’s first missile-evading drone with a self-destructive capability for dangerous situations.

“‘Given the daily progress of drones as well as the increased missile power to destroy them, a missile-evading drone was designed and built for the first time in the world which can escape thermal and air-to-air missiles and no missile can approach the drone any closer than 250 meters,’ Hassan Akbari Layeq who has built the ‘Sarallah Drone’ told FNA on Sunday.

“He said the drone is equipped with a deceptive system and can speed up and escape incoming missiles, ‘And this is the first time that this technology has been designed and used for a 4-kilogram drone.’”

Full report here.

Tom Gross adds: Reports by the Fars News Agency are not always accurate.

Editors at Fars also appear to read these dispatches and have quoted from them in the past, as well as reproducing this interview with me here:

http://www.tomgrossmedia.com/mideastdispatches/archives/001196.html

http://www.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=9002230446.

EGYPT THREATENED TO ARREST GEORGE CLOONEY’S WIFE

The wife of film star George Clooney, British-Lebanese lawyer Amal Alamuddin, has revealed that in 2013 the Egyptian authorities threatened to arrest her over her criticism of the country’s justice system. She had criticized Egypt for legal flaws that led to the jailing of three al-Jazeera journalists.

As I have noted before in these dispatches, al-Jazeera’s Egyptian-Canadian bureau chief in Cairo, Mohamed Fahmy, Australian citizen Peret Greste, and Egyptian freelance producer Baher Mohamed, are all imprisoned in Egypt on what are widely believed to be trumped-up, politically motivated terrorism charges.

They were sentenced to between seven and ten years in prison but last week, under international pressure, Egypt’s highest court ordered a retrial.

Mrs. Clooney wrote in relation to other Egyptians sentenced to death: “Sentencing a political opponent to death after a show trial is no different to taking him out on the street and shooting him. In fact, it is worse because using the court system as a tool of state repression makes a mockery of the rule of law.”

SAUDI AIRLINES REPORTEDLY PLANS TO SEGREGATE SEXES

Saudi Arabia’s state-run airline has decided to impose separate seating on its male and female passengers, according to reports in the Arab media.

The plan is being implemented due to an increase in complaints from men who said they did not want their wives sitting next to other men, the Saudi daily, Ajel, and the Emirates 24/7 news website reported. According to the reports, only close relatives will be allowed to sit together.

A spokesman for Saudi Airlines said the story “had been taken out of context” and no decision had been made yet.

Saudi women are not employed as flight attendants by the airline, which instead hires women from other countries.

Saudi Arabia famously forbids women from driving motor vehicles. In public spaces such as restaurants, beaches, amusement parks or banks, women are required to enter and exit through special doors. And women who are seen socializing with a man who is not a relative can even be charged with committing adultery, fornication or prostitution.

(In the past, I have written on Saudi Arabia. For example, here, after the 9/11 attacks:

Time to face up to Mecca: Why wasn’t Saudi Arabia on Bush’s Axis of Evil? (February 8, 2002))

AYATOLLAH COMPARES FERGUSON, GAZA

Last week, Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei used his English-language Twitter page to criticize the United States’ treatment of Native Americans and African Americans, highlighting the recent events in Ferguson, Missouri.

Among his tweets:

“Was it not colonialists who killed Native Americans& enslaved millions of Africans?Are these American values? #Ferguson #WoundedKnee”

“If #Jesus were among us today he wouldn't spare a second to fight the arrogants&support the oppressed.#Ferguson #Gaza”

***

IRANIAN POLICE ARREST 50 WOMEN FOR “UN-ISLAMIC” DRESS

“Morality police” have stepped up their arrests of women in Tehran for wearing “immodest dress”, arresting 50 women just last week, according to reports from the Islamic Republic.

The Islamic code was established by Ayatollah Khomeini in 1981. It orders women to cover all body parts except the face and wrists.

Many Iranian women have defied it over the years and some have lately started wearing high heeled boots with tight leggings, enraging regime hardliners.

Among related past dispatches, please see:

Happy in Gaza (& arrested for being happy in Tehran) (& Disabled Saudi tweet) (May 22, 2014).

HAMAS CONDEMNS SHOOTING OF GAZAN TEEN BY EGYPTIAN GUARDS

Hamas on Saturday condemned the fatal shooting by Egyptian border guards of a Palestinian minor on the Gaza border.

An Egyptian security official said that troops opened fire on Gazans who had illegally crossed into the Sinai, where the army has created a buffer zone to prevent the movement of Gaza-based militants.

“Soldiers charged with protecting the frontier fired at six Gazans, of whom three succeeded in returning to Gaza while three were arrested. One was probably hit by the fire,” an official said.

Gaza emergency services spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said that 17-year-old Zaki al-Houbi was killed. The Egyptians shot him “in the back and the bullet settled in the heart. He died on the spot,” he told AFP.

“FEMALE SLAVERY THE BIGGEST HONOR FOR NON-MUSLIM WOMEN, SAYS JIHADIST”

The Australian (one of Australia’s main papers) reports (January 2, 2015)

“An Australian Islamic State fighter who has been used in a propaganda video has claimed non-Muslim women are ‘used and abused’ and should become slaves as it would be ‘the biggest honor for them’…

“The comments were made after Islamic State forced women and children of the Yazidi ­religious sect to be slaves who are often subjected to rape.

“At least four Australian fighters have been identified as having Yazidi slaves, and horrific stories of their treatment – including sexual abuse – have emerged in recent weeks…”

Tom Gross adds: Extreme Islamists point to verses in the Koran that seem to imply that Muslim men can take “captive … wives unto whom thou hast paid their dowries, and those whom thy right hand possesseth of those whom Allah hath given thee as spoils of war”.

SANTA CHASED OUT OF TURKISH TOWN IN ANTI-NEW YEAR’S CELEBRATION

Hurriyet Daily News, one of Turkey’s main papers, reports:

“Amid increasing anger at official and popular levels at the supposed Christian aspects of New Year’s celebrations in Turkey, members of the far-right Great Unity Party (BBP) symbolically ran Santa out of town Dec. 31 in the northwestern province of Bolu.”

Photo here.