GOOD NEWS FROM THE UK as Britain bans 'anti-Semitic' French comic from entering UK using tough new laws outlawing anti Semitism

On grounds of public security and strick laws to fight anti Semitism, Britain's interior ministry slaps exclusion order on Dieudonne M'bala M'bala after he reportedly planned to visit country to support Nicolas Anelka in footballer's 'quenelle' row. Dieudonne responds by giving Queen Elizabeth II his trademark Nazi-like salute

French comedian Dieudonne M'bala M'bala was on Monday banned from entering Britain after he reportedly planned to visit to support Nicolas Anelka in the footballer's anti-Semitism row. Dieudonne responded by giving Queen Elizabeth II his trademark Nazi-like salute.

The comic, who has a string of convictions for hate speech in his homeland, performed the stiff-armed gesture after naming the queen in a rant during a show in the Swiss town of Nyon.

Britain's interior ministry said earlier it had slapped an exclusion order on 47-year-old Dieudonne who in his homeland has a string of convictions, for hate speech, using Britain's strict new laws that were brought in to combat anti Semitism  on the grounds of public security.

Dieudonne invented the allegedly anti-Semitic"quenelle" gesture that Anelka used during a goal celebration in December, landing the striker with a charge from English footballing authorities.

 

"We can confirm that Mr. Dieudonne is subject to an exclusion order," a Home Office spokeswoman said in a statement.

 

"The home secretary (Theresa May) will seek to exclude an individual from the UK if she considers that there are public policy or public security reasons to do so."

 

British media last week quoted Dieudonne as saying that he was planning to perform a show in Britain and hold a press conference in support of his friend, former French international Anelka.

 

The Home Office refused to give further details on the order banning from Britain.

 

But a British government source told AFP on condition of anonymity: "The reason for the exclusion order is that he was going to come to the UK."

 

Dieudonne, who also faces accusations of fraud at home, says he is being persecuted by the French authorities.

 

"So many things have happened over the past year. Just today... Shit, what have I done? I don't know," he said during his show in Nyon.

 

His lawyer Jacques Verdier said he did not know if his client had actually intended to go to London.

 

He said that the ban showed British authorities were "nervous" and added that "it's appalling but nothing surprises us at the moment."

 

Trademark stiff-armed gesture

Anelka has been charged by the Football Association, the sport's governing body in England, after he made the "quenelle" gesture, which critics say is anti-Semitic but Dieudonne insists is anti-establishment.

 

The West Bromwich Albion striker made the gesture during a goal celebration after scoring against West Ham during an English Premier League match on December 28.

 

Anelka denies the charge, saying he is neither anti-Semitic nor racist, and that he made the gesture in support of Dieudonne.

 

Britain is using new laws to combat anti Semitism which were brought in last year and has used exclusion orders on rare occasions in recent years to keep out public figures deemed as having extreme views.

 

France has in recent weeks intensified a crackdown on Dieudonne, who has been widely accused of promoting anti-Semitism and has been convicted in France for hate speech and other related offences.

 

The French government in December succeeded in preventing him from starting a nationwide tour of a new show, "The Wall", because of its perceived anti-Jewish content.

 

Last week French police seized €650,000 and $15,000 in cash during a raid on his house as part of a probe into suspected fraud.

 

Authorities are currently trying to force Dieudonne to pay more than €65,000 in outstanding fines related to his convictions and suspect that the 47-year-old was planning to fraudulently declare himself bankrupt.

 

The "quenelle" is Dieudonne's trademark stiff-armed gesture that critics say is a disguised Nazi salute but that he defends as a generic "up yours" to the French establishment.

 

Some followers of Dieudonne have been photographed doing the quenelle at sites including Auschwitz, synagogues and outside a Jewish school in Toulouse where a rabbi and three children were shot dead by Islamist gunman Mohamed Merah in 2012.

Ynet news

70 years after Holocaust, Europe fears growing anti-Semitism

European Parliament commemorates International Holocaust Remembrance Day, addressing recent expressions of anti-Semitism in Europe, both by individuals and by institutions. As anti-Semitic parties grow in numbers, president of European Jewish Congress says anti-Semitism has undergone 'democratization'

BRUSSELS– Hundreds of Jewish leaders from European countries gathered on Monday at the European Parliament in Brussels to mark the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, amid concerns that radical rightwing parties, affiliated with anti-Semitic views, may take over the parliament in May.

Addressing the parliament, President of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, said: “The Shoah was the worst tragedy of humankind, yet, the dangers and demons are regrettably still present in our societies. This evening we remembered the victims, we paid tribute to the 'righteous among the nations' and we say: Never Again!"

 

Schultz stressed that ‘’Holding a memorial ceremony cannot undo the atrocities that happened to so many families but it can serve as a warning, it can serve as a tribute and it can serve as a lesson."

 

Polls conducted in European Union states indicate that voters are inclined to vote for radical rightwing parties in protest of economic and social crises in the continent.

 

It has also been suggested that rightwing EU parties intend to unite prior to election in bid to increase their chances in garnering votes.

 

Greek Prime Minister Antonio Samaras, whose country currently hosts the rotating Presidency of the European Council, said: “Today, one hundred years after the First World War, when dozens of millions of Europeans lost their lives in battle, and seventy years after the atrocities of the Genocide and the Holocaust, we have turned those horrific nightmares into a bright vision; and this vision into a reality: United Europe, our Europe, which has become the world champion of respect for freedom, democratic rights and human dignity,” he said.

 

Fighting against the Greek neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party, Samaras vowed to memorialize Holocaust victims and ensure that the radical right does not grow stronger.

 

He stressed that the obligation to remember the Holocaust is not only for the victims, but also for future generations, whom leaders must teach that violence against minorities and strangers is a crime.

World Jewish Congress President Ronald S. Lauder also addressed the rise of far-right anti-Semitic groups in Europe, as in Greece and Hungary.

 

Lauder said that “World Holocaust Day is meaningless if we only pay attention to the past and ignore the same problems that threaten us today."

 

European Jewish Congress President Moshe Kantor, said that nowadays anti-Semitism has undergone "democratization," saying that “70 years after the liberation of Auschwitz, who could have imagined representatives of parties with Nazi insignia, race hatred for Jews and a proclivity for violence marching down the streets of our capitals and into our parliamentary chambers - including this one."

 

Kantor addressed the fact that Nazi salutes were "performed with impunity at Auschwitz, at the Berlin Holocaust memorial, at a synagogue and even in front of the Jewish school in Toulouse where Jewish children and a teacher were murdered in broad daylight by a French terrorist."

The President of the European Jewish Congress also noted the dangers of the growing frequency of anti-Semitic acts: “As we commemorate the destruction of the Jewish communities of Greece and Hungary just 70 years ago, how liberated really are the citizens of Europe when we witness today the eruption of political parties with Nazi insignia on the streets of Athens and Budapest while we genuinely fear the very real prospect of the strengthening of far-right and neo-Nazi parties in the coming European elections?”

“The Holocaust is not a matter for satire. Anti-Semitism is not an opinion, it is a crime,” he added.

 

Ynet news

Hamas in Jenin: Pictures the BBC will NOT show.

On December 18th 2013 the BBC News website published an article pertaining to a counter-terrorism operation in Jenin during which Nafe a-Sa’adi was killed when Israeli soldiers trying to make an arrest were attacked by a mob.

At the time we noted here that the BBC chose to place the term counter-terrorism in scare quotes both in the sub-heading and in the body of the report, suggesting to audiences that there was room for scepticism with regard to the nature and definition of the operation.

“A Palestinian man is killed and at least four wounded after Israeli troops launch a “counter terrorism” operation in the West Bank.”

“Israel said its forces opened fire after being attacked during “counter terrorism activity” in the camp.”

On January 26th a memorial event for Sa’adi was held in the Jenin refugee camp, with armed members of Hamas’ al Qassam brigades making a rare centre-stage appearance. Photographs from the event can be seen here and here.

BBC audiences are of course highly unlikely to be shown such photographs or to be informed of the significance of public appearances by armed members of a terrorist organisation in a Palestinian Authority controlled region which lies within walking distance of the nearest Israeli communities.  

Instead, their ability to form an understanding of the security issues facing Israel – and hence also of any preventative actions taken – is shaped by an editorial policy based upon the patchy reporting of selected incidents (more often than not those involving fatalities) in isolation from the picture as a whole, the omission of any reporting on numerous other incidents and the promotion of a narrative which plays down the existence and scale of terrorism even through choice of language and punctuation.

BBC Watch.org

Harriet Sherwood adaciously suggests that Palestinians have abandoned terror

All Harriet needs for Christmas is a new brain.

One of the many articles published in early November by the Guardian about the Swiss report on the death of Yasser Arafat concluding that the late Palestinian leader was likely poisoned – a theory contradicted by a subsequent  French report - was penned by Harriet Sherwood, and titled ‘Arafat polonium find likely to be another hurdle for peace talks‘.  

Sherwood’s story strangely argued that the Swiss findings were “likely to worsen the already corrosive atmosphere of the faltering peace negotiations and fuel popular demands that the Palestinian leadership walk out”, and, we noticed after reviewing the article again, this even more curious conclusion about Palestinians.

Arafat was a man who divided the world: revered by Palestinians and their supporters, reviled by Israel and its allies. Nine years after his death, a portrait of him still hangs in most Palestinian homes. Nonetheless, the Palestinian people have inevitably moved on. Acts of violence, espoused by Arafat, are rare in the West Bank, and rocket fire from Gaza has dropped; instead, the Palestinian leadership has invested its hopes in diplomacy and negotiations.

The broad suggestion that Palestinians have largely abandoned Arafat’s ‘strategy’ of terrorism represents an almost staggering distortion based on empirical data on the quantity of terror attackssince his death.  (In 2005 alone, 2,990 Palestinian terror attacks were recorded.)  Further, though such attacks have decreased overall in comparison to the height of the 2nd Intifada, this reduction is largely attributed to the construction of Israel’s security fence and more effective counter-terror measures, not changing Palestinian attitudes towards terror.

Additionally, Sherwood’s claim that “acts of violence…are rare in the West Bank” is also simply not true.  As BBC Watch’s Hadar Sela recently reported, “statistics provided by the ISA [Israel Security Agency] for the months July to November 2013 shows that the number of terror attacks taking place in Judea and Samaria [the West Bank] and Jerusalem since the renewal of direct negotiations between Israel and the PLO on July 29th has more than doubled”. 

Terror incidents since July, 2013.

Sherwood’s additional claim that “rocket fire from Gaza has dropped” is also extremely misleading.  As the graph below on rocket attacks from Gaza demonstrates, rocket attacks from Gaza increaseddramatically since Arafat’s death in 2004 (and Hamas’s control of the Strip in 2006).   While rocket attacks did decrease following the Gaza war (Cast Lead) in 2008-09, they increased again each year after the conflict until Israel launched an eight-day war in November 2012 (Pillar of Defense).

Beyond the statistical evidence contradicting Sherwood’s specific claims, it’s hard to understand how anyone covering the region as long as she has could possibly come to the conclusion that Palestinians have in any way abandoned terrorism.  In addition to the ubiquitous examples of the Palestinian glorification of terrorists, a comprehensive report on Arab public opinion by Pew Global in September demonstrated that “support for suicide bombing and other violence aimed at civilian targets is most widespread in the Palestinian territories“.  A staggering 62% of [Palestinian] Muslims, per this poll, believe that such attacks “are often or sometimes justified in order to defend Islam from its enemies”.

Though we’ve, on occasion, noted reports by Sherwood which suggest a modest amount of improvement in her coverage of the region, the amount of disinformation conveyed in those two sentences we cited (on Palestinian attitudes towards terror) again reminds us that her pro-Palestinian sympathies will trump a sincere commitment to accuracy almost every time.

source

Nazi Germany 1938? Nope it's the USA in 2013 : Patrol group warns NewYork Jews not to go out alone at night

Woman attacked in Brooklyn in "knockout game"; NY councilman asks NYPD to install security cameras in areas prone to attacks.

A Jewish woman in New York was assaulted on Saturday as part of the so-called “knockout game,” according to tweets posted by New York City Councilman David Greenfield and state Assemblyman Dov Hikind.

The woman “didn’t lose consciousness but was knocked to the ground by an assailant in broad daylight,” Greenfield tweeted on Saturday evening. The councilman last week requested that the New York Police Department install security cameras in both the Midwood and Borough Park neighborhoods as a deterrent to further attacks.

Greenfield also tweeted that he has spoken with city councilman-elect Chaim Deutsch of Flatbush in order to formulate a “coordinated response to the latest knockout attack.”“In light of the ongoing rash of assaults that have left many residents frightened to walk around our neighborhood alone, I am asking the NYPD to move forward on the installation of these security cameras as soon as possible,” Greenfield said.

“Given the random nature of these attacks and the lack of witnesses, security cameras may be our best chance of making arrests in these disgusting crimes,” he explained in a statement.

Deutsch, the former head of the Flatbush Shomrim Safety Patrol, stated that he is working with the NYPD and called on citizens to report any suspicious activity.

The Borough Park Shomrim will be “issuing alerts and telling people to be aware of their surroundings once it gets dark, [and] not to go out by yourself,” group coordinator Heshy Rubinstein told The Jewish Week.

The Jewish newspaper also reported that the Guardian Angels, a nondenominational community watch organization, will be sending volunteers to patrol in several Jewish neighborhoods.

“We’re running a full campaign,” Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa told The Jerusalem Post in an email last week.

The group posted flyers in affected neighborhoods urging residents to “stop the knockout game” by following a list of safety tips.

The Jewish Week also reported that the Crown Heights Jewish Community Council hasannounced a reward of $1,500 in exchange for information leading to arrests in connection with the attacks.

Last week the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, an umbrella organization coordinating activities among various Jewish organizations in the city, told the Post that it is offering a bounty of up to $5,000 for such information.

New York officials issued statements condemning the knockout attacks, with returning police commissioner Bill Bratton telling the New York Post that the NYPD will go after perpetrators “aggressively.”

“We’ll attack trends like knockout the way a doctor goes after a basal cell before it becomes a melanoma. That’s what we did with the wolf packs of the late 1980s and early 1990s,” he said.

Brooklyn Borough President elect Eric Adams called the attacks “terror,” The Yeshiva Worldreported. “There’s not difference if you fly in a plane into a building or if you are striking someone because they are walking down the street. Knockout is not a game. It’s an assault. It’s terrorizing people, and we got to put it to a halt.”

Not every politician’s response has been greeted with delight by New York’s Jewish community, however.

Despite calling for a zero tolerance policy on the knockout game, councilwoman- elect Laurie Cumbo of Crown Heights angered many of her soon to be constituents when she posted on Facebook a letter she had emailed to supporters explaining that resentment of Jewish success may be a cause of the violence.

Despite significant progress in intercommunal relations since 1991‘s Crown Heights Riot, many African American and Caribbean residents of the neighborhood have “expressed a genuine concern that as the Jewish community continues to grow, they would be pushed out by their Jewish landlords or by Jewish families looking to purchase homes,” she wrote. Despite her admiration for the Jewish community, she continued, “for others, the accomplishments of the Jewish community triggers feelings of resentment.”

“Expressing, as you have, a sympathy for those who hold the success of the Jewish community in contempt – as a success ‘not their own’ – almost rings as an apology for those who are committing violent crimes as a response to their resentment,” Hikind wrote in a blog post lambasting Cumbo.

“While the sociologists busy themselves analyzing and ruminating over social trends, our jobs as elected officials should be to protect the victims and protect the community, not ascribe motivation to criminals.”

Jerusalem Post

US : California Student Leader Wants to Decapitate ‘All Who Support the IDF’

Several weeks ago The Jewish Press brought you the story of the California student leader, Muhammad G. Hammad, who posted on a social media platform a picture of himself holding a sharp blade, and describing how he wanted to stab Israeli soldiers with it. 

Well, he’s baaaaaa-aack. A new posting on Tumblr from Mohammad G. Hammad, president of San Francisco State University’s General Union of Palestine Students (GUPS), has been discovered by the AMCHA Initiative.

 It’s even more graphic than the earlier one. In this post, Hammad discusses the death of an Arab 17 year old in Hebron last year. The 17 year old was shot by a female Israel Defence Forces soldier after the youth attacked her and pulled a realistic-looking toy gun on her.  

The post includes an entirely fabricated version of the actual events, one which portrays the Arab as a deaf teenager innocently out to get some birthday cake when he was shot to death by the IDF soldier, following an “altercation.” In his “CUPCAKESANDKITTENS4EVER” Tumblr account, Hammad writes: I’m sitting here looking through pictures of that f[EXPLETIVE DELETED] s[EXPLETIVE DELETED] [NAME REMOVED TO PROTECT THE SOLDIER] ….Anyone who thinks there can be peace with animals like this is absolutely delusional, and the only “peace” I’m interested in is the head of this f[EXPLETIVE DELETED s[EXPLETIVE DELETED on a plate, as well as the heads of all others like her, and all others who support the IDF The Liberation of Palestine can only come through the destruction and decimation of this Israeli plague and it can’t possibly come soon enough. 

The Jewish Press contacted Dr. Leslie Wong, the president of San Francisco State University. We wanted to know whether the school plans to take any action against Hammad, given that he has now named a specific individual whom he wants to kill, and has stated his desire to decapitate anyone who serves in the IDF and any IDF supporters. 

Surely that includes at least some people at SFSU. Ellen Griffin, SFSU’s  associate vice president for communications, shared with The Jewish Press a statement issued yesterday by Dr. Wong.

 That statement addressed Hammad’s earlier Tumblr threat.  According to Griffin, the administration had not been aware of the second violence-glorifying post by the president of the Palestine Students Union. It is now. In yesterday’s statement Dr. Wong promised his university population that they should trust that I will step in when speech or actions cross the line into violations of law or University policy. I am absolutely committed to maintaining a safe environment. 

In both recent cases, for example, we have conducted thorough threat assessments with law enforcement, increased campus safety measures, facilitated dialogue with student groups, offered counseling resources and initiated the student conduct review process. I am confident these actions protect both the safety and the rights of our campus community. Can the SFSU environment be considered a safe one with a student leader – let’s say that again, a student leader! -  who has already posed making threats while caressing a knife, and is now calling for the beheading of IDF soldiers and anyone who supports them?

 Surely any “dialogue with student groups and counseling resources” is a tack already taken, one revealed to be insufficient. Will SFSU make clear that threats against its population will not be tolerated? The SFSU administration is already on notice.  Any action taken after someone is already harmed will not be defensible.

We await a response from Dr. Wong. 

Story from the Jewish press

Anti Semitic NYC Councilwoman unbelievably blames Jews for attacks on Jews in NY

It had to happen at some point. Sooner or later, somebody was going to get around to blaming the Jews for all of the “knockout game” nonsense:

Councilwoman-elect Laurie Cumbo, who was elected to represent Crown Heights starting in January, released an open letter Tuesday saying that many of her black constituents told her they feel threatened by the growth of the neighborhood’s Jewish community — and she fears the tension could be spiking the recent violence.

“Many African American/Caribbean residents expressed a genuine concern that as the Jewish community continues to grow, they would be pushed out by their Jewish landlords or by Jewish families looking to purchase homes,” Cumbo wrote in the 1,200-word letter, which was emailed to supporters and posted on her Facebook page.

“I respect and appreciate the Jewish community’s family values and unity that has led to strong political, economic and cultural gains. While I personally regard this level of tenacity, I also recognize that for others, the accomplishments of the Jewish community triggers feelings of resentment, and a sense that Jewish success is not also their success.”

The only question now is how quickly she will be forced to apologize.

Pocketful of Liberty.com