The Middle East’s Only Self Declared Democracy Refuses Visas to Human Rights’ Watch

What has Israel got to hide (apart from torture, internment, extra-judicial executions & state-sponsored child abuse)?

It's strange to think but some people still classify Israel as a democracy

The effective functioning of civil liberties and human rights groups, free from state interference in their activities, is the hallmark of a democracy.  In Israel civil liberties groups, which are respected in most West European countries, are seen somewhat differently.  They are the enemy, traitors, the enemy within, agents of terrorism etc.  They are the fifth column doing the work of the Arabs.

In Israel the rhetoric of the Zionists is aided by fascist and McCarthyist groups like Im Tirzu, which are looked on with favour by the government.  However Israel has now gone a step further and refused to issue work permits to many of those working in the human rights field thus intending to cripple them.  

Illustrative: A screenshot from an Im Tirzu video, 'outing' four leftists as defending terrorists. Caption reads: 'When we fight terrorism, they fight us.' YouTube

This is of course a government which has waged an ongoing war against Breaking the Silence, a group of ex-soldiers who expose war crimes and malpractice.  Even the worst government would not openly dare to attack former soldiers who wish to expose the crimes of their own army  Not so in Israel.  Anyone criticising the armed forces must be an agent of terrorism.  Below are two articles on the current situation.  A typical article is Breaking the Silence: Sabotaging Israel from within by the settler news agency Arutz Sheva.

Tony Greenstein

An Israel flag flies near a Jewish settlement in Hebron West Bank Palestinian Territories. Israel is refusing to issue visas to Human Rights watch, accusing the NGO of having a ‘hostile’ agenda in its reporting of human rights violations. Photograph: David Levene for the Guardian

Israel denies work permit to Human Rights Watch

Charlotte Silver Rights and Accountability 24 February 2017

Israel has refused to grant a work permit to a staff member of Human Rights Watch.

In a letter, Israel’s interior ministry alleged that Human Rights Watch works in the “service of Palestinian propaganda, while falsely raising the banner of ‘human rights.’”

The allegation, the letter added, had been made by Israel’s foreign ministry, which had recommended denying an application for a work permit made on behalf of Omar Shakir. He had been appointed the Human Rights Watch director for Palestine.


The letter, sent earlier this week, does not go into any further details.

Human Rights Watch has described the decision as “an ominous turn.”

“It is disappointing that the Israeli government seems unable or unwilling to distinguish between justified criticisms of its actions and hostile political propaganda,” Iain Levine, a Human Rights Watch representative, said.

The group stated that it had “regular access without impediments” to the occupied West Bank and present-day Israel for almost three decades. However, it noted that Israel has been blocking it from entering Gaza since 2010 – except for one visit last year.

Human Rights Watch says its team has worked with many arms of the Israeli state, including the police and military, and had even been called upon by the foreign ministry to intervene in a case where Israelis were victims of human rights abuses.

Limbo

Human Rights Watch asked the Israeli authorities that Omar Shakir, a US citizen, be granted a work permit in July last year.

Israel’s interior ministry regulations state that a decision on work permit applications should take up to 60 days. In Shakir’s case, it took seven months.

Shakir told The Electronic Intifada that he has been waiting in limbo in New York until he was given a guarantee of entry by Israel.

“It has certainly impeded our work,” Shakir told The Electronic Intifada, explaining that he was scheduled to meet with Israeli officials last December regarding human rights abuses of Israeli citizens. He was unable to attend that meeting because of the delay in processing his application.
Human Rights Watch has retained local counsel and will challenge the decision.

“In the meantime,” Shakir said, “we will continue to do our research and documentation.”

“With this decision, Israel puts itself in the same group as Sudan, Uzbekistan, North Korea and Egypt, all of which have barred Human Rights Watch from entering,” he added. “But we still monitor those countries, and we will continue to monitor abuses in Israel and Palestine.”

Ban on BDS activists?

Shakir said the last time the group needed to apply for an Israeli work permit was in 2011. On that occasion, it was granted a permit, without encountering any difficulties.

Shakir has previously worked for Human Rights Watch in Egypt and as an attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, a New York-based organization.

But Shakir explained that the denial was not about him. Foreign organizations in Israel must go through a two-step process to hire foreign nationals.

The interior ministry assesses the organization first and then investigates the individual who is seeking a permit.

Human Rights Watch did not get past the first step, Shakir said.

Human Rights Watch has noted that the rejection of its application came amid “increasing pressure” against those who monitor Israel’s activities.

Last year, Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, passed a law that required Israeli human rights groups to report foreign funding.

The Knesset is poised to pass a law in the near future that would deny entry to foreign nationals who support the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel.

In December, Israel detained, interrogated and deported Isabel Apawo Phiri, associate director of the World Council of Churches, claiming that she was affiliated with the BDS movement.

Refusing the visa for a Human Rights Watch worker will further mar Israel’s already tarnished reputation over its human rights record. Israel is reportedly re-examining the decision on orders from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, after the US administration “voiced discontent,” the Tel Aviv newspaper Haaretz reported on Friday.

Human Rights Watch does not take a position on BDS but it did publish a report in January 2016 that called on businesses to halt their work in the settlements that Israel has built in the occupied West Bank.

Israel bars Human Rights Watch director from entering country, calls org ‘Palestinian propaganda’

Letter from Israeli government to Human Rights Watch explaining their decision to prohibit Shakir from entering and working in Israel. (Photo: Human Rights Watch)

Israeli authorities denied Human Rights Watch’s (HRW) Israel and Palestine director a work visa, the group announced in a statement on Friday. The group said Israel’s Interior Ministry accused  HRW of “Palestinian propaganda” and not being a “real human rights group.”

Omar Shakir was informed that he would be unable to obtain his visa, on Feb. 20, though the information was not public until Friday.

The Interior Ministry reportedly cited an opinion received from Israel’s Foreign Ministry, which stated that HRW’s “public activities and reports have engaged in politics in the service of Palestinian propaganda, while falsely raising the banner of ‘human rights.”

HRW, a well-known nonprofit, nongovernmental human rights organization made up of roughly 400 staff members around the globe, has a history of being critical of Israel’s many human rights violations, labeled so according to international law and conventions.

Shakir responded to the denial on social media, slamming the Interior Ministry’s decision.

“The Israeli government is hardly the only one among the 90+ countries we cover to disagree with our findings, but branding us propagandists and fake human rights advocates puts Israel in the company of states like Egypt, North Korea and Sudan who have blocked access for our staff members,” Shakir said. “Israel claims to be only democracy in the Middle East, but is barring us at a time when our staff is based in and freely operates in several other countries in the region.”

“While the denial comes as a surprise (we have had regular access to Israel/West Bank, though not Gaza for three decades), it comes amid increasing pressure on Israeli and Palestinian rights groups and a wide-ranging assault on basic democratic values. Blocking our access will not silence us,” he added, “We will continue to scrupulously investigate abuses, expose the facts and struggle every day to defend the inherent human dignity of all.”

Iain Levine, deputy executive director of programs at Human Rights Watch said the decision and the “spurious rationale” behind it “should worry anyone concerned about Israel’s commitment to basic democratic values.”

“It is disappointing that the Israeli government seems unable or unwilling to distinguish between justified criticisms of its actions and hostile political propaganda,” Levine said.

On Friday afternoon, Emanuel Nahshon, a spokesperson for Israel’s Interior Ministry told Mondoweiss that Shakir “may enter Israel with a tourist visa” adding that “with regard to the work visa, this may be reconsidered if the organization appeals the Ministry of Interior decision.”

A group of 17 Israeli human rights organization condemned the Interior Ministry’s actions, calling the visa denial a “cause of grave concern.”

“Israel seeks to portray itself as a card-carrying member of the club of democratic countries,” the joint statement said, “Yet what is democracy without free speech, robust public debate and open criticism? A state that defines itself as democratic cannot turn its border control into a thought police.”

The organizations that signed the document were listed as: Adalah Center, Akevot, Amnesty, International Israel, Bimkom, Breaking the Silence. B’Tselem. Coalition of Women for Peace, Emek Shaveh, Gisha, Hamoked: Center for the Defense of the Individual, Haqel-Jews and Arabs in Defense of Human Rights, Human Rights Defenders Fund, Machsom Watch, Negev Coexistence Forum for Civil Equality, Physicians for Human Rights Israel, The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel and Yesh Din.

“Neither closing Israel’s borders to human rights organizations and activists nor other measures by the Israeli government against organizations that criticize the occupation will deter us from continuing to report human rights violations in the territories controlled by Israel,” the groups added. “Attempts to silence the messenger will not suppress our message.”

Letter signed by Israeli NGOs protesting the government’s decision to prohibit Human Rights Watch’s country director from working in Israel. (Photo: Facebook

About Sheren Khalel

Sheren Khalel is a freelance multimedia journalist who works out of Israel, Palestine and Jordan. She focuses on human rights, women's issues and the Palestine/Israel conflict. Khalel formerly worked for Ma'an News Agency in Bethlehem, and is currently based in Ramallah and Jerusalem. You can follow her on Twitter at @Sherenk.

Israel denies visas to staff from 'hostile' Human Rights Watch

The Attack on Israel’s Human Rights Organisations by the State

When Israeli Jewish Opponents of the 

Occupation are Targeted for attack the 

Israeli Labour Party Offers its Support

Ezra Nawi - arrested Human Rights Worker

The article below in Israel’s 972 Magazine illustrates graphically the attack on Israeli human rights organisations and groups which oppose the Occupation and highlight its casual brutality.

Ezra Nawi has been detained, without access to a lawyer, on a trumped up charge as a result of the ‘revelations’ of the far-right Ad Kan group that he had threatened to report what was a bogus land deal to the Palestinian police.

Another Israeli far-right NGO Im Tirzu makes it clear that it is unconcerned if its campaign against left-wing NGOs and civil liberties groups results in physical attacks on those running those organisations.

Having attacked Palestinians in Israel and run an Occupation for nearly 50 years, it is clear that the next target is Israeli Jews who speak out against Zionist violence and injustice. 

B’Tselem field worker Nasser Nawajah was as I previously described, arrested and produced in the Jerusalem criminal courts and when the courts ordered him to be freed, immediately transferred to the Military courts on the West Bank, which are courts in name only.

Ezra Nawi - Ta'ayush and gay activist in South Hebron Hills

The Israeli anti-occupation Left and human rights NGO’s are under severe attack by the Israeli state.  Breaking the Silence, an organisation of soldiers with a conscience, is a particular target.  BtS documents and publicises the war crimes of the Israeli military by documenting the stories of Israeli soldiers themselves concerning the brutality and the mass murder, in Gaza in particular.  BtS is a target of those who, instead of preventing Israel’s war crimes prefer to attack an organisation which publicises them.  It is a classic case of shooting the messenger rather than dealing with the message. 

In this attack we see that the virulent nationalism of Zionism now targets the democratic rights even of Israeli Jews.

Tony Greenstein

It's open season on anyone opposing the occupation

By Noam Sheizaf

Published January 23, 2016

There is a campaign being carried out against anyone actively opposing the occupation in Israel, and it doesn’t matter if you’re an activist in the field, a human rights attorney or a former soldier talking about what you were ordered to do.

Ta’ayush member Ezra Nawi is brought to a Jerusalem court on January 20, 2016. Nawi, an Israeli Jew active opposing the occupation, was arrested after a right-wing organization put him in the crosshairs of a hidden-camera ‘sting operation.’ (Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)

“Activists from the shady organization, “Ta’ayush,” who we tracked from within and outside, behind closed doors and during clashes on Saturdays, are going to fall one by one. Don’t worry friends. We will finish off Ezra Nawi and move on to Guy Butavia… and many others.”

That message was published and quickly spread on Facebook following the arrest of Ezra Nawi, and before the arrest of Guy Butavia, another activist in Ta’ayush, and B’Tselem field worker Nasser Nawajah. The three were arrested after a right-wing group, “Ad Kan,” gave allegedly incriminating materials to the police and primetime investigative news show, “Uvda.”

A month earlier, far-right group Im Tirzu marked other anti-occupation activists as targets: B’Tselem Executive-Director Haggai El-Ad; executive director of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, Yishai Menuchin; a prominent member of Breaking the Silence; and an attorney who protects Palestinians in Israeli courts on behalf of Hamoked — Center for the Defense of the Individual. This week it was revealed that right-wing group “Regavim” hired a private investigator to track human rights attorney Michael Sfard and Israeli human rights organization Yesh Din. There is a connection between each of these, of course.

By Haggai Matar | January 22, 2016

The past few days have seen politicians and pundits comparing the “extreme left” to the “extreme right,” between the Ta’yush activists to the suspects in the Duma murders. Alon Dian wrote brilliantly about the mainstream’s tendency to create this kind of symmetry — replacing principled, moral judgment with statistics. But there is a different, more fundamental point that does not get the attention it deserves. In the case of Duma, the police went and looked for the perpetrators only after the crime was committed. The same goes for all the recent hate crimes by right-wing extremists, which were investigated by the state (the vast majority of so-called “price tag attacks” end with no indictment).

A group of Ta’ayush activists walk toward a Palestinian hamlet in the South Hebron Hills on Saturday, January 17, 2016. The activists’ presence is often enough to prevent settlers from targeting Palestinians and to deter the army from kicking them off their land. (Photo by Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)

But in the case of the Ta’ayush activists, the process was reversed: “Ad Kan” did not go to the South Hebron Hills to investigate the harassment of land sellers. They went in search of ways to bring down Ta’ayush. To infiltrate the organization and get dirt on as many activists as possible. Like in the case of Michael Sfard and Breaking the Silence: first the Right found its target, and only then did it start looking for crimes. To the chagrin of Regavim, the materials it found and published about Sfard did not lead to the same storm that the Uvda report or recent articles on Breaking the Silence did. But the principle is identical.

The criminals from the South Hebron Hills

A member of Ta’ayush speaks to Israeli army officers during a direct action in solidarity with Palestinian residents of the South Hebron Hills, January 17, 2016. (Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)

This is the fundamental issue. This is the reason left-wing activists feel it is open season on them. Because the targeting of activists has become personal, using their names and images. Because the goal is to find something — anything — to eliminate them, at all costs. If not through police investigations, then by tarnishing their public images, like in the case of former Ambassador to South Africa Alon Libel. Perhaps a recent article on him in Yedioth Ahronoth, in which he was secretly filmed giving a lecture to Breaking the Silence activists, will bring about a change in the law and Libel will find himself in prison. If not, then maybe someone will decide to wait outside his home and beat him up. When the head of Im Tirzu was asked about the possibility that his contemptible campaign could actually bring physical harm to the heads of these organizations, he shrugged and said that it “would be their responsibility.” Things have never been clearer.

A prominent right-wing journalist with whom I used to work often said, in an entirely different context, that “once you enter the system’s pipeline, someone will find something about you.” That is why in a state governed by law, the police investigates crimes rather than people. At this moment, the logic in Israel is the exact opposite — the Right is investigating people. The media, the police, and the pathetic politicians of the Israeli center are following in its wake. Before the land seller case, the Samaria and Judea Police Division tried to pin on Nawi a series of traffic violations. Only the fact that were able to make an even better case stick saved us from reading op-eds about how “the Left is protecting a traffic violator.”

The reason these people were targeted is crystal clear. There is not much in common between Ta’ayush and Michael Sfard, or between Breaking the Silence and Ezra Nawi, aside from the fact that they all struggle against the occupation.

They say Breaking the Silence is hated in Israel because they speak about the occupation abroad, and that B’Tselem is hated because they receive donations from foreign countries. Nonsense. Ta’ayush does not speak abroad. In fact, they aren’t even an NGO, but rather an informal organization made up of people who every Friday and Saturday head to the South Hebron Hills — in the hottest days of summer and in the freezing winter — to stand up to settlers from illegal outposts and the army that backs them. This is a boring, difficult task, which often includes accompanying Palestinian shepherds and farmers — so that they are not attacked by settlers — planting trees, or cleaning out water wells that have been either sealed shut or destroyed.

A decade and a half ago, when I served as a soldier in South Hebron Hills, the army still accompanied Palestinian children in order to prevent settler harassment. But the truth is that even back then, this was the wildest, ugliest place in the country. One of the settlers, who immigrated from apartheid South Africa, advised us to treat the Palestinians the way they used to treat blacks in his native land. Another settler, who lived in a cave in the West Bank, used to march his small herd of sheep directly into Palestinian fields, and when they tried to keep the animals away from their crops, the man would call the army because, well, the Palestinians were harassing Jews.

The reality of the Israeli Wild West did not interest the either the public or the media back then. It doesn’t interest them today. Uvda never bothered to go to the occupied territories to talk about the difficult reality farmers face there on a daily basis. The only people who cared were the activists in Ta’ayush, who do everything they can to stand up to much larger, far more organized forces. And now they are paying the price for it. Just like Michael Sfard, who argued before the High Court of Justice — and won — that the land belonging to the villagers of Bil’in was stolen for the sake of building a new neighborhood for Jews, all using deceptive claims of “security needs.” Just like B’Tselem’s field worker Nasser Nawaj’ah, who sat in jail following Uvda’s report while bulldozers demolished a protest tent against land expropriation in his home village of Susya. First they ignore the story, then they target those who speak about it, then they look for dirt, and then they demand the rest of the Left condemn the wrongdoers, lest everyone be considered a criminal.

The fact that Ta’ayush’s activities focus on Israel/Palestine, rather than abroad, hasn’t helped them much. Michael Sfard’s appeals to Israeli courts, rather than The Hague, were what led the Right to persecute him. The fact that Breaking the Silence does not reveal the names of the soldiers who give testimony, so that they do not face prosecution around the world or even in Israel, did not help. They are all fighting the occupation — that is their real crime. Instead of going to speak on television panels about the need for a “political horizon,” they tried to do something about the reality here. The occupation is the ruler, and it eliminates its opponents. Not because they are strong or threaten it, but because there really is no other way. Because the project of control in the occupied territories is in crisis, and we need to place the blame on someone.

The Right’s vision

It is no coincidence, of course, that Ad Kan’s campaign is backed by the publicly funded Samaria Settler Council, and that Regavim — which spends huge sums on tracking human rights organizations — is also backed by state-funded local councils in the West Bank. Ta’ayush, on the other hand, is run entirely by volunteers. Now it seems that the only people who actually received money for their trips to South Hebron Hills were Ad Kan’s moles, possibly funded by Israeli taxpayers.

The state and the Right are joining hands because the occupation is the state. Guy Butavia discovered in his interrogation that the questions he was asked by the police were passed on by Ad Kan. Israeli police in the West Bank, a division of the Israel National Police that is totally incompetent when it comes to solving recurring attacks against Palestinians — and which closes investigations into people who attack left-wing activists in broad daylight and in front of the cameras — suddenly acted with maximum efficiency in response to the Uvda investigation. Ezra Nawi was arrested at the airport despite the fact that there was no order preventing him from leaving the country. Why? How? Who cares. The arrestees were prevented from meeting with their attorneys, as if we were dealing with a “ticking bomb.” Not only were these blatantly political arrests, the most basic rights of the detainees were suspended.

Something dawned on human rights organizations and anti-occupation activists this week. It seems clear to all that a new campaign has begun. Much of the public is apathetic toward the Ta’ayush arrests, as goes for all political persecution. In history classes we used to ask ourselves how the “silent majority” and the “good people” allowed for such horrible things to happen. Now the answer is clear: if someone is being persecuted, there was probably a good reason, and the majority of people continue living their lives, because that is what people do. The weakness of Israel’s left-wing parties is far less clear to me. They are still playing the old game of trying to wedge themselves into the mainstream while the reality has changed completely.

It must be repeated: the Right has no solution for the current situation. The Palestinians will continue to resist the occupation, even if all the human rights organizations are shut down. Even if Israel manages to silence the Palestinians for a month, a year, or five. Those who view Arab citizens of Israel as enemies will turn them into enemies. Those who view Israelis who oppose the occupation as traitors won’t stop there. The only vision the Right is presenting is a civil war between Jews and Arabs, and between Jews and Jews. The only thing preventing that from happening is Israel’s sheer military strength. But desperation will also find a way to break through even that. With every day that passes, the price of changing direction only rises, and those who are able to step on the brakes prefer to sit on the fence.

This article was first published in Hebrew on Local Call. Read it here. 

The Israeli War on Christmas…and Christianity

Lehava's Benny Gopstein praises the Nazis’ mythical figure ‘The Eternal Jew’

Benny Gopstein is the leader of Lehava, a fascist organisation whose ‘charitable wing’ Hemla is part funded by the State of Israel.  It runs a hostel which caters for poor Israeli Jewish women who’ve been ‘rescued’ from relationships with Arab men.  Thanks to Tzipi Hotoveli, the Deputy Foreign Minister, Hemla  was given a grant by the government to continue with their ‘good works’.  This includes funding Gopstein’s own salary.  Israeli Nazi organisation funded by Government 

One of many varied posters for Der ewige Jude

Lehava’s main campaign is against Jewish-Arab relationships (as in Nazi Germany it's only relationships between the women of the master race and the men of the untermenschen which the racists are obsessed with).  In Germany Hitler specifically forbade the legal authorities charging Jewish women, who had relationships with Aryan men, with Rassenschande (racial pollution).  So it is with Lehava.  Jewish men having sex with Arab women is not a matter of concern though according to religious law they should do it out of sight and far away from their Jewish wives!

Gopstein in chains (Yonatan Sindel/Flash 90)

In August Gopstein came out with a call to burn down Christian churches.  Members of Lehava were recently convicted of arson at Jerusalem’s only mixed Arab-Jewish school, Hand in Hand, though unlike Palestinians guilty of arson received derisory sentences of two and two and a half years..  Now Gopstein has called for the expulsion of ‘the vampires’ of Christianity  from Israel ‘before they once again suck our blood.’  Lehava Leader Benny Gopstein Advocates Burning Churches & Mosques 

Poster for the film Der ewige Jude

This is the language of anti-Semitism and in particular feudal Christian anti-Semitism.  Now Zionism’s fruitcakes have adopted the same language.  But there is a marked contrast between the treatment of Arabs and Jews.  Raed Salah, leader of Israel’s now banned Northern Islamic League, has been sentenced to 11 months gaol on what are essentially trumped up charges of incitement to racial hatred. He has denied the interpretation placed on many of his comments and when he was subject to deportation proceedings in Britain, the government lost the case because it had relied on Zionist sources, the Community Security Trust for its evidence.  The evidence had been tampered with and one poem in particular had had words added to it ‘we Jews’ in order to make it appear to be anti-Semitic.

Indeed he was acquitted of racial incitement by the Jerusalem Magistrates Court.  It was only on appeal to the higher colonial court, the Jerusalem District Court, that the acquittal was reversed, thus demonstrating that the conviction was political not evidential in nature.

Leader of the far-right Israeli group Lehava, Benzi Gopstein on August 11, 2015. (Miriam Alster/FLASH90)

With Gopstein there is no dispute.  He has openly supported the burning down of Christian churches and now advocates their expulsion from Israel in another racist tirade. 

Lehava protestors

What is the response of the Israeli authorities to Gopstein’s comments.  Those who are always so eager to imprison any Palestinian who makes any untoward comment or gesture are strangely silent when it comes to Jewish racists.  Nothing, absolutely nothing.   Because Jewish racism is not only condoned but actively supported by the Israeli government and state.  From Netanyahu to members of his Cabinet, racist statements have poured forth.

One of the exhibits from Der ewige JudeSuch are the double standards of the ‘Jewish’ State.

It is no surprise that Gopstein refers to the Eternal Jew.  This is a figure much favoured by anti-Semites.  The eternal wandering Jew punished for deicide is a standard feature of anti-Semitism.  So much so that perhaps the most anti-Semitic of all the Nazi’s films was the Eternal Jew, , Der Ewige Jude.  Gopstein is in good company.

However Gopstein's anti-Christian hatred is not simply confined to the neo-Nazi section of the Israeli right.  It permeates through religious Zionism and the Zionist right.

Nazi propaganda art  the "Wandering Jew"

In Upper Nazareth, built in order to contain Arab Nazareth (but to where many Arab Nazarenes have gone to live because Nazareth is unable to expand because Arab communities in Israel are denied planning permission and its lands have been confiscated anyway) there has been a virulent campaign against the inflow of Arabs.  The city’s chief rabbi, Isaiah Herzl declared that Xmas trees would be “offensive to Jewish eyes”.  The Mayor, Shimon Gapso, declared that '“As long as I hold office, no non-Jewish symbol will be presented in the city.” 

The Israeli War on Christmas…and Christianity

by Richard Silverstein on December 22, 2015  in Mideast Peace

Fox News and other far-right media sites and politicians have railed for years about the “War on Christmas” supposedly waged by atheists, liberals and other enemies of the Judeo-Christian tradition.  But there is a far more virulent enemy of Christmas and Christianity in our midst.  No, you won’t find him in a Muslim country, the demon du jour of Donald Trump and the far-right.

The Eternal Jew exhibition in Vienna

Instead, you will find him in the Holy Land, Israel, the birthplace of Christianity.  He is Bentzi Gopstein, leader of a Jewish fascist group, Lehava.  In his past, he’s been accused of murdering an Arab couple a week after the assassination of his mentor, Meir Kahane.  No charges were ever brought against him for that crime.  Like white supremacists and Kahane himself, Gopstein has adopted fighting Jewish-Arab miscegenation as his political mantra.

Lehava administers a hostel supported with $120,000 in government funding for “wayward women” who’ve supposedly left relationships with Arab men.  In Knesset hearings, Gopstein and his political supporters have cried rivers of tears about impressionable Jewish women being lured into lives of sexual slavery by Arab men who tempt them.  They offer reams of claims about the severity of the problem, but never any firm statistics.  Nor does anyone ever offer a skeptical view on the matter.

In the past year, Gopstein has expanded his attack to include Christianity as well.  All of it.  He called for the banning of Christianity and the burning down of churches and…lo and behold, a week later the Church of Loaves and Fishes was nearly burned to the ground.  Though arrests were made, no one has been charged for the crime, a standard outcome in Israeli police investigations unless massive political pressure is mounted to lay charges and prosecution.  Jewish terror even co-opts the security apparatus.

This week, just in time for Christmas, Gopstein let loose his latest barrage against the Church.  It’s a memorable screed called Defeating the Vampire, combining overwrought rhetoric with a largely-fictional account of Jewish history:

In recent days, I’ve walked through this land [of Israel] feeling a sense of real disquiet.  I’m not talking about the lack of personal security that derives from a government that is impotent against the Arab enemy…but rather a lack of spiritual security, a destruction of the fortress, a disintegration of the Jewish people’s line of defense against our most deadly enemy of the past hundreds of years: the Church.

He proceeds to outline the ways in which Christianity has allegedly attempted to exterminate the Jewish people:

Against this [the Church’s] unimaginable power stood the Jewish people like a poor sheep surrounded by seventy wolves; like easy prey before all those bloodthirsty animals.  The history of the Jews of Europe…is written in the blood of millions–from the cruel Crusades in which entire [Jewish] communities were wiped out, to pogroms throughout the continent [sic], to countless blood libels, mass expulsions from England, France, Spain and Portugal–all of them were only stations along a cruel journey which our people suffered in Christian Europe.  A journey which reached its end in the smokestacks of Auschwitz, a moment over which the Vatican rubbed its hands with glee [sic].

Despite all this, the Jewish people survived…The Eternal Jew stood tall.  And when the ashes of Auschwitz piled high and the blood soaked into the fetid soil of Europe–when the the desecration of God’s name [the extermination] had reached its peak…God could no longer stand it and raised up out of the smoking embers the State of Israel–a most resounding slap in the face the Church had ever endured.

What was the secret of the Eternal Jew enabling him to survive all these horrors of the Church [sic]? 

Without doubt, it was the burning faith in the justness of our path, the deep loathing of Christianity which every Jewish baby sucks from his mother’s milk…The children of those Jews who were burned like sacrificial sheep, founded the State of Israel, whose very being negated the Church.

…Because we maintain one of the strongest armies in the world the Church has no chance of destroying our bodies…But they place their last hope in the blood-sucking vampire: the missionaries.  If they cannot kill Jews, they can still try to convert them…Stores devoted to selling evangelical literature offer their wares to all on Jerusalem’s Jaffa Road.  Entire settlements are crawling with missionaries.  Many businesses are run by them and serve the evangelicals, in many cases camouflaging their intent and without the knowledge of  their [Jewish] employees.

That same disgust Jews felt toward Christianity, which was the only thing which saved us during our dark days in Europe, that same disgust has faded in the midst of the good life of the era of democracy.  The Christian is no longer perceived as a threatening vampire, but rather as a nice tourist, friendly and a partner in the prevailing western culture we both share.

…In a few days, this cursed religion will celebrate Christmas throughout this land.  To our sorrow we can feel this everywhere.  You see fir trees in stores.  On billboards, you can see flyers inviting the wider public to study about Christianity–right in the heart of Jerusalem.

…How could even the Orthodox and Haredi communities not have raised their voices against this?  Could they too have lost the basic Jewish instinct which was the inheritance of our people for hundreds of years?  Have they too become trapped in the net of democracy, free speech and the politically-correct brotherhood of man?

Christmas has no place in this our holy land.  Evangelicals must not gain a footing here.  Expel the vampires from our land before they once again suck our blood.  We’ve already fed them enough.

For those of you who heard echoes of Nazi anti-Semitic propaganda in Gopstein’s tropes, you heard well.  The notion of the Eternal Jew is of course directly appropriated from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.  But the most striking phrase was the notion that Christians are blood sucker-vampires.  This is precisely the complaint that echoed in the pages of Der Shtumer: the Jews as leeches sucking the vitality from Europe.  In the case of the Nazis, they were more obsessed with money and high finance, claiming Jews controlled world capital.  Gopstein sees Christians sucking the blood from the millions of Jews murdered, supposedly by direct command of the Church.

Of course, much of his argument is false and fabricated.  I’ve added [sic] after the ones that are the most farcical.

There will be those who argue that Gopstein is an outlier.  He has nothing to do with the real Israel.  Everyone sees him as a madman, etc., etc.  But that is patently false.

Not only is Gopstein an accused murderer, his followers burned down a Jewish-Arab school in Jerusalem.  Other disciples (either direct or indirect) burned the Church of Loaves and Fishes to the ground only a week after he issued a call to undertake such acts.  These are not the acts of the sort of lone gunmen who’ve perpetrated acts of terror lately in the U.S.  This is a powerful leader with a charismatic message that resonates deeply with tens or hundreds of thousands of Israelis.  It is a message the Israeli political and security echelons have no interest in combatting.  Despite calls from the Pope himself and Israeli human rights NGOs for his arrest, he remains free.

It’s also ironic that Israel’s increasingly authoritarian government considers legislative proposals that would force NGOs receiving foreign funding from wearing a sort of “Jewish star” like ones forced on us by the Nazis, whenever they entered the Knesset.  The ironic truth is that rightist NGOs like Lehava, Honenu, Im Tirzu, NGO Monitor, and many others, probably receive far more foreign funding than left-wing NGOs.  The major difference is that the latter receive donations from governments and large foundations, while the rightists receive mostly individual gifts.  You may be certain that if these bills pass you will not see Ronen Shoval (Im Tirzu) or Gerald Steinberg (NGO Monitor) shuffling through the halls of the Knesset with any scarlet letter on their chests.  That fate will be reserved for B’Tselem, Peace Now, New Israel Fund, and their like.

It is truly extraordinary that foreign funders embrace the hate spewed by Gopstein.  He’s very cagey about where his funding comes from.  One source we know for sure is the Israeli government itself.  Its social welfare ministry funds projects sponsored by an NGO called Hemla.  One of them is the hostel for “wayward girls” mentioned above.  Gopstein is the public affairs representative for Hemla and earns a salary from it.

He’s told the media that individual donors are directed to give through the Fund for Saving the Jewish People (FSJP).  One of these is the Falic family based in Hollywood, FL.  This extended family owns Duty Free America, a company which owns duty-free shops around the world.

A Falic-affiliated fund donated $60,000 to FSJP.  They donated more than half the funds that Bibi Netanyahu raised for his campaign in the last Likud primaries.  They also donate millions to a raft of mostly GOP pro-Israel candidates.

As you can see, the Falics are not outliers.  They find the doors of power open in Tel Aviv and Washington DC.  They’ve also endowed Bentzi Gopstein with a seal of approval through their giving to his cause.  Instead of six moves of separation from Gopstein to Netanyahu, there is now only one.  He is close to the beating heart of Israeli political power.

The Falics offered this deceptive defense of their giving to journalist, Uri Blau:

I am committed to giving tzedakah to causes which I care about deeply, such as the well-being and continuity of the Jewish people and the State of Israel. I believe that it is important for Jews to be connected to our roots, our history and our homeland, and to take care of one another.

I believe in diversity, co-existence and integration, as opposed to “anti-assimilation,” but I recognize that this can occur only when each person holds strongly to his or her own ideals, ideologies, religion and convictions. As Tevye succinctly put it in Fiddler on the Roof, “As the Good Book says, ‘Each shall seek his own kind.’ In other words, a bird may love a fish, but where would they build a home together?” In summary, staying true to one’s beliefs can not only give meaning to one’s own life, but can influence the conscience of others to make more sound choices and better judgments, including living together in peace and harmony.

Though it’s touching to see Mr. Falic quote the words of Fiddler on the Roof, I note he’s compared Israeli Jews to birds of prey and Palestinians to fish, their prey.  That does seem just about right, though I’m certain the speaker didn’t catch the irony.  And how Palestinians are supposed to understand from this rhetoric or from Gopstein’s Nazi-like speeches that their “consciences should make better judgements…and live together [with Jews] in peace and harmony” is beyond me.

I recently posted about Donald Trump’s increasingly xenophobic and Islamophobic rhetoric and the tropes it shares with fascist themes.  The call for closing our doors to Muslims, even those who are citizens, is extraordinary.  Even more extraordinary is that such rampant racism gains him supporters, rather than destroying his campaign for the GOP presidential nomination.

Though it appears in the latest polls that even Bernie Sanders could beat Trump in a one-on-one matchup, and many Democrats relish the prospect of running against him–we should recognize Trump as a watershed candidate.  Before him, those whose campaigns were largely based on themes of hate and racism were thoroughly rejected even in their party nomination contest, let alone the general election.  George Wallace, while popular, was largely a fringe candidate.  Barry Goldwater was trounced by Lyndon Johnson.

Trump is a different animal.  He exudes hate, yet his supporters feed off it.  It only makes him stronger.  The rest of the country waits for a day of reckoning which never comes.  His comeuppance never comes.  Instead he glides through the campaign season with the cocky air of Rocky, a heavyweight boxing champ.  Nothing can touch him.

Bentzi Gopstein’s call for ethnic cleansing of Christians and Palestinians from Israel mirror those of Trump here in America.  Israel itself is lurching farther and farther toward fascism and outright religious hatred, if not war.  Israeli extremists like him thrive on this confrontation.  They know the more Jews and Arabs die the closer they are to that final battle between the forces of Light and Dark, between demons (Muslims) and angels (Jews).  They know in their hearts that the Jews will win.  That they will vanquish their enemies and trample them underfoot.  That is the day devoutly and fervently awaited.

Gopstein and Trump represent two poles which attract.  They offer the same solutions (though Trump offers them with considerably more salesmanship and panache).  The outcomes of their winning their contests will be similar for America and Israel: a disaster of monumental proportions.

I have enough faith in America that it will not make this choice.  About Israel, I have far less faith and hope.  It is embracing Gopstein’s vision with a frightful passion.  Whatever ideas of his are not yet mainstream, they will be in a month or a year.  This is the same path followed by his rebbe, Meir Kahane.  In the 1970s they thought him a ranting maniac.  Now the maniac’s ideas trip lightly off the tongues of Israeli cabinet ministers and generals.  Fascism no longer lurks in Israel’s  shadows.  It preens and prances through the halls of power.

Head of extremist Jewish group calls Christians ‘blood-sucking vampires’

Religious rights group calls on police and attorney general to investigate Lehava leader Bentzi Gopstein for incitement to violence in recent op-ed

By Times of Israel staff December 22, 2015, 4:52 am 71

A religious rights organization on Monday called on the police to investigate the head of an extremist anti-assimilation group after he published an op-ed branding Christians “blood-sucking vampires” and calling for them to be expelled from the country.

Bentzi Gopstein, leader of the Lehava organization, penned an article published on the ultra-Orthodox Kooker website last week decrying the “lack of spiritual security” he’s felt in Jerusalem of late because of “our deadly centuries-old enemy — the Christian church.”

Last month, a dozen Lehava protesters headed by Gopstein demonstrated outside a Christmas event at Jerusalem’s YMCA, decrying what they termed the “murder” of Jewish souls.

Shouting, “You murdered us in exile,” and condemning European blood libels and historical persecution of the Jews, the small group waved Israeli flags and sang Hanukkah songs outside the venue, with some signs urging all the “impure” Christians to leave the Holy Land.

A Lehava protester carries a sign reading, ‘Get out, unclean ones,’ at a protest decrying a YMCA Christmas bazaar in Jerusalem on Sunday, November 29, 2015 (Times of Israel)

In his Kooker article published December 17 in Hebrew, Gopstein called the establishment of the State of Israel in the mid-20th century “the most ringing slap in the face the church ever received” after centuries of failed attempts to eliminate the Jews. Since violent methods failed, he writes in his diatribe, “it was decided to invest billions of dollars over the years in order to gain a foothold in the Holy Land and disseminate spiritual poison” through missionary work.

“The Christian is no longer considered a threatening vampire, rather a pleasant, friendly tourist and partner in the Western culture that dominates our lives,” he said, blaming the Israeli education system for not instilling enough Jewish education in students. “The vampires can send a message of thanks to the government of Israel for making their work much easier.”

He called on all willing Jews to raise a cry “and fight the devious phenomenon,” referring to Christianity as “that accursed religion.”

“Christmas has no place in the Holy Land,” he concluded. “Missionary work must not be given a foothold. Let’s throw the vampires out of our land before they drink our blood again.”

Approximately 160,000 Israeli citizens, or 2 percent of the population, is Christian, and a considerable number of Israel’s foreign tourists are adherents to the faith as well.

In response to Gopstein’s remarks, the Israel Religious Action Center called on Israeli legal authorities to launch a criminal investigation into what it deemed to be the Lehava leader’s incitement to violence against another religious group.

“Bentzi Gopstein is capable of doing anything in order to incite against anyone not like him — Arab Muslims, Christians and others, while using blunt language and calling to violence,” Orly Erez-Likhovski said in a statement posted on the group’s Facebook page.

“Unfortunately, against this blatant incitement, accompanied by unruly violence, there’s deafening silence by law enforcement,” she said, calling on Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein to put Lehava leaders and others who incite to violence in the dock.

Lehava was established as an organization aiming to prevent marriage between Jews and Arabs, which is prohibited according to religious Jewish law. The group has become identified with the extreme Jewish right and its members have been seen patrolling downtown Jerusalem on some evenings, looking, they claim, for mixed couples.

Their vigilante patrols have often degenerated into scuffles, and there were several instances over the past year where members of the organization have beaten Arabs. Most of the organization’s members are teens.

Some Israeli politicians have been calling on the government to outlaw the group, whose members have been implicated in several hate crimes.

Der ewige Jude

The "Eternal Jew" or the "Wandering Jew"

The concept of the "Wandering Jew" is far older than National Socialism. It derives from a literary and popular legend, about a Jew who mocked or mistreated Jesus while he was on his way to the cross and who was condemned therefore to a life of wandering on earth until Judgment Day.

The story of this wanderer was first recorded in the chronicles of Roger of Wendover and Matthew of Paris during the thirteenth century. The exact nature of the wanderer's indiscretion varies in different versions of the tale, as do aspects of his character, some of the more common themes being the doom of the "Wandering Jew" to travel the world forever, forsaken by all unfortunate enough to encounter him.

Nazi Propaganda saw in this proof that the Jews have been justifiably persecuted by all racers over the millenium.

The Eternal Jew exhibition first opened in the Library of the German Museum in Munich on November 8, 1937, and ended on January 31, 1938. Billed as a degenerate-art exhibition, it was the largest prewar anti-Semitic exhibit thus far produced by the Nazi's. The exhibit featured photographs pointing out the typically "Jewish" features of political figures, such as Leon Trotsky, and international film star Charlie Chaplin.

The displays emphasized supposed attempts by Jews to bolshevize Germany, It did this by revealing an 'eastern' Jew - wearing a kaftan, and holding gold coins in one hand and a whip in the other. Under his arm is a map of the world, with the imprint of the hammer and sickle. The exhibition attracted 412,300 visitors, over 5,000 per day.

The exhibition moved to Vienna for August 2 through October 23, 1938, and then to Berlin from November 12, 1938 through January 31, 1939. Police reports stated there was a direct correlation rise in anti-Semitic feelings, and in some cases violence against the Jewish community in each city the exhibition was held.

The film Der ewige Jude opened on November 29th, 1940 throughout the German Reich. Each city where the film played had it's own posters. In the Altenkirchen district of Betzdorf, the film was described as a "documentary film about world Jewry". "It is unique because it is no fantasy, but undiluted reality."

The Nazi goal of Der ewige Jude is to be the first film to portray a fully exposed picture of world Jewry, and to be a "valuable tool in the struggle to break the power of the Jews over the Aryan race."

The consistent theme throughout the film of the Jew as parasite in an otherwise healthy host, is found throughout the film in several forms, each of them designed to reveal to Germans the "true" Jew underneath the veneer of European culture that concealed the Jewish parasite.

Jews are introduced as a foreign, swarthy, hook-nosed, untidily bearded, sullen presence that clogs the teeming streets of middle Europe. They haggle, squabble over food at the table, hoard with wealth, conceal it from tax collectors, and grow sleek and fat at the expense of good Germans. Their religion and culture are seen as cabalistic sources of secret powers.

In one famous scene, swarms of rats scurry through cellars and sewers, the shots are intercut with images of Jews emigrating from Palestine to to all corners of the world. The overlaid text conveyed the message:

 "Where rats turn up, they spread diseases and carry extermination into the land. They are cunning, cowardly and cruel, they travel in large packs, exactly the way the Jews infect the races of the world."

Artistically, the film is a "black masterpiece" of the cinematic conventions of 1940; a German version of The March of Time style that included animated maps, falsely labeled stock footage, segments of feature films borrowed to make some ideological point, stills, decoupages of evocative book jackets and headlines, and an omniscient voice-over narration.

The film was directed by Fritz Hippler, the Director of the Film Department of the ministry subordinate to only Joseph Goebbels, for all films produced by the Reich ministry. Born in Berlin in 1909, Hippler studied at Berlin and Heidelberg universities, completing a thesis on Marx, Mill and Lagarde for which he was awarded a doctorate of philosophy.

As a student he was already enthusiastic about the Nazis, joining their various organizations as early as 1926. They promised to create work for all, end corruption and restore Germany's place in the world, this appealed to Hippler who managed to obtain a position working on newsreels. The quality of  of his work did not go un-noticed and several reels  impressed Goebbels who later promoted him to Director in 1939.

Fritz Hippler

Throughout the making of Der ewige Jude, Hippler kept in daily contact with Goebbels, he returned with final footage to Berlin on October 16, 1940. The rushes were developed the same day and shown to Goebbels during the evening. The pictures of half-an-hour with ritual slaughtering, deliberately staged as cruelty to animals, shocked Goebbels who wrote in his diary the next morning:

"Dieses Judentum muss vernichtet werden." (This Jewry must be annihilated).

After having shown these rushes at the Führer’s dinner-table on October 28, 1940 - where everybody according to his diary were deeply disturbed, Goebbels went to Lodz to see for himself on October 31. He wrote in his diary, that the Jewish Question was more a task for the surgeon than a humanitarian one.

The importance of Der ewige Jude lies not in its technique but in its brutal service to the cause of Nazi racism. Hippler's Der ewige Jude,  would "fill the spectator with a feeling of deep-seated gratification for belonging to a people whose leader has absolutely solved the Jewish problem." It is believed that films such as Der ewige Jude helped prepare the German people to accept the eventual policy of genocide inflicted upon Jews.

Pamphlet written by Joseph Goebbels distributed prior to the start of the film,

outlining we are expected to see and think in the film

The film begins with an impressive expedition through the Jewish ghettoes in Poland. We are shown Jewish living quarters, which in our view cannot be called houses. In these dirty rooms lives and prays a race, which earns its living not by work but by haggling and swindling. From the little urchin to the old man, they stand in the streets, trading and bargaining.

Using trick photography, we are shown how the Jewish racial mixture in Asia Minor developed and flooded the entire world. We see a parallel to this in the itinerant routes of rats, which are the parasites and bacillus-carriers among animals, just as the Jews occupy the same position among mankind.

The Jew has always known how to assimilate his external appearance to that of his host. Contrasted are the same Jewish types, first the Eastern Jew with his kaftans', beard, and sideburns, and then the clean-shaven, Western European Jew. This strikingly demonstrates how he has deceived the Aryan people. Under this mask he increased his influence more and more in Aryan nations and climbed to higher-ranking positions. But he could not change his inner being.
 

After the banishment of the Jews from Europe was lifted, following the age of Enlightenment, the Jew succeeded within the course of several decades in dominating the world economy, before the various host nations realized - and this despite the fact that they made up only 1 per cent of the world population. An excerpt from an American film about the Rothschild's, made by Jews, reveals to us the cunning foundations of their banking empire.

Then we see how Jews, working for their international finance, drive the German people into the November Revolution. They then shed their anonymity and step out openly on to the stage of political and cultural life. Thus the men who were responsible for the disgraceful debasement of the German people are paraded before us. Incontestable examples are shown of how they robbed the country and the people of immense sums.

As well as gaining financial supremacy they were able to dominate cultural life. The repulsive pictures of so-called Jewish "art" reveal the complete decline of cultural life at that time.  Using original sequences from contemporary films, the degrading and destructive tendency of Jewish power is exposed. For hundreds of years German artists have glorified figures from the Old Testament, knowing full well the real face of Jewry.

How the Jew actually looks like is shown in scenes shot by Jews themselves in a "culture film" of a Purim festival, which is still celebrated today to commemorate the slaughter of 75,000 anti-Semitic Persians, and the doctrine with which future Rabbis in Jewish schools are educated to be political pedagogues. We look into a Jewish 'Talmud' class and experience the oriental tone of the ceremony in a Jewish synagogue, where Jews conduct business deals among themselves during the holy services.

However, the cruel face of Judaism is most brutally displayed in the final scenes, in which original shots of a kosher butchering are revealed. These film documents of the inhuman slaughter of cattle and sheep without anesthesia provide conclusive evidence of a brutality which is simply inconceivable to all Aryan people. In shining contrast, the film closes with pictures of German people and German order which fill the viewer with a feeling of deep gratification for belonging to a race whose Führer is fundamentally solving the Jewish problem.

Two different versions of the film were made, the original version, and a toned down one without the gory scenes of ritual slaughtering. In Berlin the film opened simultaneously in sixty six theaters with the two versions shown at different times of the day.

One review by the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung stated:

"Only when the film ends, can the viewer breathe again, from the darkest recess does he come back to the light again."

Despite such press reviews, the commercial success of Der ewige Jude paled in comparison to other anti-Semitic films such as Jud Süss. SD reports from many regions in Germany and Austria were consistent: "The horror scenes disgusted viewers and the documentary aspect was considered nerve racking."

Despite the commercial failure of the film, images were replicated onto posters and publications throughout the Reich and occupied Europe. The goal of eliciting fear, disgust and hatred, toward the Eternal Jews was summed up by one critic:

"One has a deep sense of salvation after seeing this film. We have broken their power over us. We are the initiators of the fight against world Jewry, which now directs its hate, its brutal greed and destructive will toward us. We must win this battle for ourselves, for Europe, for the world."

Hippler was captured by the British in 1944. He escaped prosecution as a criminal when Allied tribunals failed to convict other filmmakers, such as Veit Harlan,(Jud Suss).  After a process of "de-Nazification" he served the American Army as a translator. In later life, he earned his living as a travel agent.