The Campaign Against Golders Green Mosque is the tip of the racist iceberg in Britain's Jewish community

Golders Green Together Facebook page could have been written by the BNP and Britain First

 The Centre for Islamic Enlightening bought up the Golders Green Hipperdrome, a former BBC concert hall, in the heart of Golders Green, in July.  Golders Green contains the highest concentration of Jews in any area of London – some 37% are Jewish compared to 26% Christian and 12% Muslims.

You might think that Jews, with their experience of racism, would welcome another religious minority seeking to establish a centre alongside them.  Think again.  Today’s Jews seem to have learnt nothing from the Jewish experience of racism.

Led by outright racists such as Zionist activist Ambrosine Yolanda Shitrit, who is usually to be found demonstrating alongside Paul Besser of the neo-Nazi Britain First, a group called Golders Green Together was formed to oppose the plans.  A look at their Facebook page gives you an indication of their politics. 

Racism and Islamaphobia - the Elephant in the Room of British Jewry

Golders Green Together [GGT] was formed last year as an anti-racist group to oppose a small demonstration by neo-Nazis led by one Joshua Bonehill-Paine in Golders Green.  The demonstration was later moved by the Police to Central London.  Now a bunch of Zionist racists and Jewish (& non-Jewish) Islamaphobes have taken over the name and subverted.

What is common to these people is that their fervent Zionism.  They take their cue from Israel’s hostility to Muslims and Arabs. Israel is an object of veneration by European and American fascists because it is seen as the ideal anti-Muslim state.  In Israel what is termed the ‘Jewish State’ is openly racist.  Legislation such as the recent Muezzin Law outlaws the Muslim call to prayer.  Last year the Northern Muslim League, a group with a large degree of support amongst Israel’s Palestinian minority, was banned by the government without even a pretence that it had broken any law.

it seems that there is also some skulduggery concerning addimg peoples' names to the racist petition

In the USA Steve Bannon’s Breitbart magazine, the flagship of the Alt-Right movement, combines White Supremacy, homophobia, hostility to feminism and anti-Semitism with fervent Zionism.  We have the neo-Nazi founder of the alt-Right, which organised the carnival of racism at Charlottesville, Richard Spencer describing himself as a White Zionist.

Campaign Against Antisemitism's Racist Portrait of Muslim Men

Groups like the misnamed Campaign Against Anti-Semitism have campaigned on the idea that Muslims are a reservoir of anti-Semitism stating openly that ‘it has long been suspected that sections of the British Muslim population harboured hatred towards British Jews.’  In 2016 they produced a Report  BRITISH MUSLIMS AND ANTISEMITISM to back up their Islamaphobic assertions.

The Reaction of the Jewish Establishment

With the Affair of the Golders Green Mosque, the Jewish establishment has reacted with something approaching horror to the racist base they are sitting on and have, up to now, encouraged.  Forget the nonsense about anti-Semitism causing only 13% of British Jews to vote Labour.  The real reason, which has been analysed by Jewish academics such as Geoffrey Alderman and William Rubinstein, is that they have climbed the socio-economic ladder.  Couple this with the support of many Jews for Israeli settler colonialism (59% declare they are Zionists according to the Attitudes of British Jews to Israel survey in 2015) and what you see is White racist supremacy in the heartland of British Jewry. 

Jews in Britain are no longer on the Left.  Support for Zionism is a mask for wider racist attitudes such as we are seeing now in Golders Green.

Both the Jewish Chronicle and Jewish News have both come out strongly against the racist campaign against the mosque.  This is to be welcomed but both papers have distinguished themselves by their uncritical support of Israel, its apartheid structures and its demonization of Arabs and Muslims. 

The 'liberal kapos' is a new one!

The Jewish News, to its credit said that they had refused to take a paid advert from the GGT hate mongers.  They also said that they had had to delete many ‘vile’ messages on the Internet including being called ‘kapos’, the Zionist term of abuse for anti-Zionists, which equates them with Jewish concentration camp guards.  The term was poplarised by David Friedman, Donald Trump’s bankruptcy lawyer and now US Ambassador in Israel.  

It is a rich irony that those who have been peddling Zionist race hate for so many years have now become victims of that hate!  The same Zionists who regularly called Jewish anti-Zionists ‘kapos’ ‘self-haters’ ‘traitors’ are now turning their fire on those of their comrades who aren’t willing to walk that extra racist mile in the fight against a Mosque.  After all where did those associations between Muslims and terrorism come from if not Israel and its associates?

The Jewish Chronicle in a remarkable editorial for it The Fig Leaf Objections compared the reaction of Jews in Golders Green to Moslems in Rotherham objecting to a synagogue.  Both would be, in its words, outrageous.  One can only presume that editor Stephen Pollard is on leave.

Local Rabbi Goldsmith made the point that the current reactions to a mosque are similar to the reaction to Jews when, in the 1920’s they moved to Golders Green. Laura Marks of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust asked whether there would have been a similar reaction to a Christian centre moving to Golders Green and of course the answer is ‘no’ there wouldn’t. 

Zionist Tweeters fail to understand why Moslems are setting foot in a 'Jewish area' - Perhaps they have forgotten that Golders Green isn't a Jewish town in Israel

However Marks, a staunch member of the Zionist Establishment tries to play down the reaction to the Mosque.  She wrote in Why opponents of the Golders Green mosque must mind their language:

“[Some of] the language being used is simply not right.  Language has been misused by other evil regimes in subsequent genocides, and as Jews we always need to be very aware of this.

However she then pulls back and says ‘I wouldn’t for one moment suggest we are using Nazi language, but we must recognise the danger of what we say….”  This is cowardice.  The language being used by GGT is Nazi language and indeed there are neo-Nazis posting on the Facebook page.  Nearly all the FB comments are of a virulently racist nature.

Ambrosina Shitrit, 2nd left, Paul Besser of Britain 1st (left) and Hoffman (right

The reaction to the Mosque is driven by what one might call the activist wing of the Zionist movement – people like Jonathan Hoffman, Ambrosina Shitrit etc.  The horrified reaction of the Jewish Establishment is a product of its own work.  Year after year they have poured out vile propaganda against Arabs and Palestinians.  They have defended every racist action of the Israeli state and proclaimed that Israel’s murderous attacks on Gaza were an act of peace.  Is it any wonder that many Jews have assimilated the message that you can’t trust Muslims or Arabs?  These establishment worthies have gone along with everything Netanyahu has done and defended his demolition of homes, houses and even his call to Israeli Jews to vote because the Arabs are voting in droves.  The values of Zionism have seeped into the subconscious of British Jews and the petition to Barnet Council is the result.

Hoffman is able to see 'both sides of the debate' - for once

Ambrosina Shitrit's alter ego is 'Eyeonantisemitism'

Jonathan Hoffman and Zionist tropes

Jonathan Hoffman, the former Zionist Federation Vice Chair is cited in a report by the JTA as saying that ‘“There is a concern around this very divisive issue….There is concern about Muslim anti-Semitism.”  Hoffman went on to say that his comments don’t mean he personally opposes the new Centre, but merely that he understands both sides of the debate.

No doubt if there was a neo-Nazi campaign against a synagogue he would also ‘understand both sides of the debate’.  This comes from someone who has never understood the Palestinian side of the debate as he shouted down his opponents.

It is remarkably similar language to Donald Trump who instead of condemning the neo-Nazi violence at Charlottesville, instead condemned violence on ‘both sides’.

The JTA Report goes on to say that a 2008 study by the Community Security Trust attributed a third of all violent anti-Semitic incidents to perpetrators described as having an Arab or South Asian appearance.

Golder’s Green Facebook Page and the Vile Racist Comments of Zionists

The Golders Green Facebook page is a sewer of racist bigotry.  It is a testament to what British Zionists really think when the PR and hasbara is abandoned.

Under a post heading ‘Shocking revelations now come to light re Golders Green development of a mosque at BBC hippadrome’ we have Daniel Vulkan of Jewish Voice for Labour finding his racist neighbours comments most amusing.  

There is Ambrosine Yolanda Shitrit, who is normally happiest in the company of Britain First neo-Nazis, saying that the advent of the Mosque will change peoples’ minds with Rachelle Marks commenting that ‘hope they the Muslims go away and realise they are not wanted as we need a theatre not a MOSQUE.’ Rachelle then suggests that ‘they have a mosque in a side street where it won’t be noticed’.

Comments include:

“Who are they praying to and what are they plotting? … Beware the Islamic takeover.”

“Islamic colonialism – in the heart of what was the only uniquely Jewish area in the UK.”

A Robert Sur believes that unless ‘you welcome your conquerer with open arms you are a racist islamaphobic bigot’

whereas Helen Kissen believes the Jewish Chronicle should be renamed ‘the Muslem chronicle’. 

Robert Moshi informs us that ‘the liberal kapos dominate the media’ with surly Sur telling us he lost all respect for that ‘liberal rag’ when they printed an advert for the Gaza appeal some years ago.  The idea of printing a paid for ad for the victims of Israel’s bombing clearly doesn’t appeal to these kindly souls.  It must be the first time in a long time that the JC has been described as liberal.

Robert Young tells us how he can’t bear to see ‘that little dwarf hopping around in golders green’ a reference to the local Tory MP Mike Freer who has opposed the bigots.

Robert Young, who seems to be all over GGT’s Facebook page publishes an illustration of Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on free speech and posts a link to the White Supremacist Breitbart News!

The Independent suggests that Young is a member of the neo-Nazi Britain First, the same group that former Zionist Federation Vice Chair Jonathan Hoffman works with.  What is interesting is how he is never criticised or called out for his openly racist and neo-Nazi views by others who post to the FB page. 

Young also informed people that the noise from the call to prayer and Muslim demonstrations would be unbearable.  He informs readers that

‘On Sunday the first they swarmed the whole area with a victory parade of cars with jihadi flags and inbreds with 2 different eye-sizes.’ 

Clearly Mr Young’s talents are underused.  He could have been employed on Der Sturmer had the paper still been going.  But there is still no reaction to these overtly racist comments.  In fact Young attracted 3 'likes' for his comment about 'inbreds'.

Robert Sur echoes what the Jewish Chronicle said in its Leader, that parking is a pretext for racist bigotry:

‘I am the only one with the guts to say what everybody else is thinking.  It has nothing to do with parking or traffic.  We don’t want a mosque there and who can blame us?  Those Muslims purposely picked Golders Green because it is a Jewish area.  They want to stamp us out as they have in so many other countries.’  Clearly Sur doesn’t just speak for himself as he has 4 likes – A Francesco replies in what must be a humourous comment that ‘I wouldn't be surprised if the JC was a militant lefty newspaper...’ 

A common theme among the posters is that ‘they’ want to take us over.’  Zionist activist Shitrit is at the heart of them.  Her main theme seems to be that as they have some non-Jewish racists alongside them then it’s alright. 

Other activists such as Herutnik Neal Cohen is convinced that it is all a Muslim plot.  Sur and many others reserve much of their bile for people like Laura Marks:  ‘gutless sheep. She'd hand the hangman the rope.’

Far-Right Islamaphobic Gatestone Institute is posted on GGT FB page

An article from the far-Right Islamaphobic Gatestone Institute in the USA is posted, again without any protest despite its record of publishing fake news about no-go Muslim areas in Europe and its hosting racists such as Geert Wilders.

Robert Sur speaks for many when he recalls the Gaza advert in the Jewish Chronicle.  ‘I remember that Gaza appeal. Those Jews make me wanna vomit’

One would think from reading these comments that the JC was a fully signed up supporter of the Palestinians rather than the Zionist rag that it actually is.  But the overt Zionism of the contributors stands out because that is where their racism comes from – Israel.

Plan to Open Mosque in Iconic London Jewish Community Sparks Outcry

Haaretz 14.10.2017 12:07 Updated: 12:08 PM

Move to turn Golders Green Hippodrome into an Islamic Shia center has seemingly split the local Jewish community, with some reactions being labeled 'Islamophobic'

The Golders Green Hippodrome, which might host the Hussainiyat Al-Rasool Al-Adham mosque and Islamic center. Wikimedia Commons

Plans to open a mosque in one of Britain's best-known Jewish communities has sparked a heated response from some locals, leading to accusations of Islamophobia.

The Jewish Chronicle has been reporting on the increasingly fractious developments in recent weeks after the iconic Golders Green Hippodrome – formerly a BBC concert hall seating some 3,000 people – was bought earlier this year by the Centre for Islamic Enlightening, for £5.25 million ($7 million).

The group's spokesman, Ahmed al-Kazemi, was quoted in the Jewish Chronicle as saying that the building would house the Hussainiyat Al-Rasool Al-Adham mosque and Islamic center, serving northwest London's Shia community.

The JC also reported that a petition complaining about the plan was posted on the local Barnet Council's website and received over 4,000 signatures, compared with 93 comments in favor of the mosque.

While some local residents voiced concerns about traffic jams and noise pollution, others questioned the arrival of Muslim worshippers in an area that is famously noted for its Jewish community.

One local resident wrote on the Barnet website that the move would “force the Jewish population to run away,” while another said placing "a large Muslim institution in the heart of one of London’s only two Jewish communities is a highly dangerous undertaking."

However, a prominent local rabbi, Mark Goldsmith, has criticized the comments coming from some members of the community.

"Things have been said about it being the largest mosque in Europe, and that the Shia community is a threat," Goldsmith told the JC. "That language is threatening and misleading.

“I suspect it’s the same sort of thing said about Jews moving to Golders Green in the 1920s," he added. "Golders Green is not entirely Jewish. It’s a special place to live in and we all get along together. That’s what London is about.”

Golders Green, in northwest London, has been home to a large Jewish community since the 1950s. In the most recent census, some 37 percent of the suburb was Jewish, compared to 26 percent being Christian and 12 percent Muslim. (Britain's largest Jewish population is situated further north, in Borehamwood, on the outskirts of London.)

Writing for the JC, Laura Marks – the chair of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust – questioned whether there would have been a similar response if a Christian center were being established at the site.

Shitrit faking amazement that GGT has managed to attract some non-Jewish racists as well

 "Reading some of the comments on various chat groups by those opposed sent a shiver down my spine," Marks wrote.

"Comments such as 'We don’t know what they are preaching as it's all in Arabic,' 'This will result in violence and terrorism' and 'There is a chance of infiltration of bombers' are Islamophobia plain and simple," she observed.

Marks added: "I wouldn’t for one moment suggest we are using Nazi language, but we must recognise the danger of what we say and how that fuels mistrust, separation, prejudice and hatred."

Although the online petition closed on Friday, the fight looks set to continue in the months ahead.

The Islamic center hopes to open its doors for an initial Open Day in December, with its spokesman, Kazemi, being quoted in the JC as saying, "We are very pleased and excited to be in Golders Green in such a diverse area. We can’t wait to get to know our neighbors."

Voice of the Jewish News: The shameful agenda of Hippodrome hypocrites

The JC Leader: Fig leaf objections...

Hope Not Hate – Balancing Fear and Racism

Golders Green Together Facebook Page

Below is a section of Screenprints with some of the racist filth 

Mosque of al Aqsa The Status Has Already Changed

I doubt after Netanyahu's fairy tale at the World Zionist Congress, when he exonerated Hitler and laid the blame for the Holocaust on the Mufti of Jerusalem that anyone, bar the United States Congress, will believe him.  This should especially be the case with the Temple Mount and the Mosque of Al Aqsa.  The status quo has, as Ben White says, already been changed.

The Golden Domed Al Aqsa Mosque

Before entering the Temple Mount, there is what is known as the Wailing Wall, the Western Wall apparently of the second temple.  In 1967 the Israel invaders demolished the Moroccan quarter in front of the wall in order to allow greater numbers of Jews to pray there.

Police damage in Mosque

Imagine for one minute that Muslims started demanding the right to pray at the Western 'Wailing' Wall.  There would be riots.  But that is exactly what is happening at the golden domed Mosque of Omar, the most beautiful signpost to Jerusalem.  The heathens, because that is what they are, of the Temple Mount Institute and Ateret Cohanim, who openly wish to demolish the mosque and make way for the Third Temple, complete with animal sacrifices, otherwise known as the religious Zionist settlers, have forced their way into the Mosque accompanied by dozens of Israeli soldiers firing stun grenades, assaulting Muslims who are praying and causing extensive damage.

The Mosque is the property of those responsible for maintaining it, the clerics of Islam in Jerusalem.  If they don't want anyone from another religion to even enter the Mosque that is their business.  It's not a synagogue or even a church it is a mosque.  Imagine if a group of Muslims in Britain decided to force their way into a synagogue under some bogus pretext or other.  The fact that Jewish people and others can visit the Mosque is or should be a decision solely for those who run and maintain the mosque.  The 'status quo' was itself forced upon the Mosque in 1967 and has been the subject of consistent attempts to overturn it.

In fact Orthodox Jews won't go onto the Temple Mount for fear of trespassing on the Holy of Holies, a capital crime in the Jewish religion, since god is supposed to reveal himself there to the High Priest.  To the messianic madmen of the Jewish religion this injunction means nothing since their real idol is the land of Israel.

Tony Greenstein

Don’t believe Bibi – Israel has already changed the ‘status quo’ at Al-Aqsa

Ben White

Friday, 23 October 2015 13:23

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly stated that his government has no intention of changing the ‘status quo’ at Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, and that claims to the contrary by Palestinians are either mistaken, or acts of deliberate deception.

Let us put aside for now the fact that the Israeli government and Jerusalem municipality fund radical Jewish groups actively dedicated to the ultimate goal of building a ‘Third Temple’ after the physical destruction of Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Let us also put aside the fact that there is well-documented support for the demands of right-wing Jewish activists’ amongst Israeli politicians – including cabinet ministers.

Instead, let us look at two particular statistical trends: restrictions on access for Muslim worshippers and the number of visits by Jewish activists to the compound.

According to official data from the Israeli police, the instances of access restrictions to Al-Aqsa Mosque compound for Muslim worshippers shot up in 2014.

Border Police

In 2012, age restrictions were imposed on Muslim worshippers on just three occasions, a figure that rose to eight in 2013. In 2014, however, Israeli authorities imposed age restrictions for Muslim worshippers on 41 occasions – a five-fold increase from the preceding year.

In addition, Israel closed the compound to all Muslim worshippers and visitors for one day on October 30, 2014, the first such full closure in 14 years.

The data, published four months ago by Emek Shaveh, an organization of archaeologists and community activists, also shows that the most common age restriction was for men under the age of 50, which has occurred 34 times from 2012-2014.

Emek Shaveh note how in 2014, “the Israeli police imposed age restrictions on worshipers 41 times”, which “amounts to nearly 15% of the year.” Thus, the group concludes, “the feeling among Palestinians that Israel is changing the status quo in the area” is actually “backed up by police data.”

Meanwhile, the number of Jews visiting Al-Aqsa Mosque compound has markedly risen over recent years. According to official police statistics, the number of Jewish visitors to the site in 2009 was 5,658 – in 2014, this had almost exactly doubled to 10,906.

Responding to these figures in January, an official from the Temple Institute, a prominent extremist group, said that the trend “demonstrate that the Jewish people are undergoing a spiritual awakening, and reconnecting – not only to their most holy site, but to their own destiny.”

In the words of Emek Shaveh, there is thus “a direct link between rising restrictions on visitors in 2013 and 2014 and increasing attempts by right-wing groups to upset the status quo in the area.”

According to UN OCHA, for “three consecutive weeks” in late August-September, Israeli authorities prevented “all Palestinian women, as well as all men under 50, from entering Al Aqsa Mosque Compound during the morning hours, to secure the entry of settlers and other Israeli groups.”
Writing in Ha’aretz on October 19, former Israeli negotiator Shaul Arieli cited a 2014 report on changes at the compound, which noted “significant changes” to Muslim worshippers’ access to Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, in parallel to the increase in Jewish visitors.

This increase in numbers is accompanied by the presence of Israeli MKs and ministers, some of whom [then-Likud MK Moshe Feiglin and then-Housing Minister Uri Ariel] give media interviews on the Mount and/or authorize Jewish prayer near the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque – actions that were forbidden in the past, but are now taking place under the auspices of the Israel Police.

Netanyahu can claim ‘incitement’ all he wants – the numbers are clear. When it comes to Al-Aqsa, as across the rest of Occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank, Israel has already changed the facts on the ground, and shows no signs of stopping.

Destruction of Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa mosque is Israeli groups’ ultimate goal

Ali Abunimah Rights and Accountability 16 September 2015

Over the last three days, Palestinians have come under fierce attack as they attempted with their bare hands, sticks and stones to deter and prevent repeated violent assaults by Israeli occupation forces into Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa mosque compound.

The violence comes as Israeli-backed groups bent on replacing the mosque with a Jewish temple are asserting their presence ever more aggressively.

Dozens of Palestinians were injured by Israeli forces who fired stun grenades, tear gas canisters and rubber-coated steel bullets at worshipers, Ma’an News Agency reported.

Early on Monday, Israeli forces forcibly expelled Palestinians from the Bab al-Silsila entrance to the compound in occupied East Jerusalem, activist Khadija Khuwais told the local news agency Q Press.

The video at the top of this post, produced by Q Press, shows more of the violent attacks by Israeli forces against journalists and other civilians as well as the firing of stun grenades inside mosque buildings.

By Wednesday, confrontations between Palestinian youths and Israeli forces were spreading to other areas of occupied Jerusalem.

Palestinians have published many images and videos of the violence on social media.

Jewish temple plans

The increasingly violent Israeli incursions at one the most revered holy sites for Muslims have accompanied the rise in recent years of so-called “Temple activism” groups.

These are organizations whose ultimate and clearly stated goal is the construction of a Jewish “Third Temple” to replace the currently existing structures that make up al-Aqsa mosque.

A 2013 report by the Israeli research organization Ir Amim noted that “the Jerusalem Municipality and other government ministries directly fund and support various activist organizations driven by the mission to rebuild the temple.”

The Temple Institute, the leading extremist organization of its kind, has already formulated detailed blueprints for the new Jewish temple.

A leading figure in the Temple movement is Yehuda Glick, an American settler who was shot and injured by an unidentified gunman after he spoke last October at a conference titled “The Jewish people return to the Temple Mount.”

Hours after the shooting, Israeli forces extrajudicially executed Mutaz Hijazi, a 32-year-old Palestinian they claimed without presenting evidence had been Glick’s assailant.

The latest violence was provoked Sunday by the entry of Jewish extremists into the compound, among them Israeli agriculture minister Uri Ariel.

A prominent figure among Israeli settlers, Ariel called in 2013 for the building of a Jewish temple at the al-Aqsa compound, known to Jews as “Temple Mount.”

“We’ve built many little, little temples,” Ariel said, “but we need to build a real temple on the Temple Mount.”

Many Palestinians fear that the incursions are aimed, as a preliminary step, at changing the longstanding status quo at the mosque. Already, Israeli occupation forces shut the mosque to Muslim worshippers on certain Jewish holy days – Israel is currently marking the start of the Jewish new year.

The latest assaults also come as Muslims around the world prepare for the holiday marking Haj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca.

One tactic Israel has used more frequently to facilitate the incursions is to issue banning orders against Palestinian volunteers, known as murabitoun, whose goal is to maintain a constant presence at the compound.

The next step many fear could be a physical partition of the compound between Jews and Muslims, following the model Israel imposed on the Ibrahimi mosque in Hebron after the 1994 massacre by an American-born Jewish settler of 29 Palestinian men and boys who were performing Ramadan prayers.

Dangerous precedent

There is a recent precedent for the destruction of a holy site of one religious group by supporters of another, with calamitous geopolitical consquences.

In 1992, Hindu nationalists in India destroyed the 400-year-old Babri mosque in the northern city of Ayodhya, which they believe was built over the ruins of a temple marking the birthplace of their god Lord Ram.

The violence this provoked killed thousands of people, exacerbating sectarianism and communalism in India to this day.

The destruction of the Babri mosque offers an ominous warning of what could happen if Israeli government-backed Jewish nationalists attempt to fulfill their desire to replace al-Aqsa with a Jewish temple.

But the violence it would trigger would have global consequences and likely make the bloodbath in India pale in comparison.

International inaction

Given what is at stake, the international neglect of what Israel is doing in Jerusalem is alarming.

Israel is testing the limits of what it can get away with.

Last year, for instance, during its 51-day assault, Israel destroyed the Omari mosque in Gaza, one of the most ancient in Palestine, with no international response.

Jordan, which maintains a nominal role in managing al-Aqsa since its 1994 peace treaty with Israel, has warned that Israel’s actions, if not stopped, will affect ties between the two countries.

But such warnings in the past have not resulted in any meaningful actions by the kingdom, which maintains close ties with the self-declared Jewish state.

The European Union issued one of its typical weak statements, failing to point to Israel’s primary responsibility for the crisis as the occupying power.

“The reported violence and escalation [at the site] constitute a provocation and incitement” ahead of important Jewish and Muslim holy days, European Commission spokesperson Maja Kocijancic told media in Brussels on Tuesday.

“It is crucial that all parties demonstrate calm and restraint and full respect for the status quo of the holy sites,” she said.

The UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Nickolay Mladenov warned the UN Security Council on Tuesday that recent events had “the potential to ignite violence well beyond the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem.”

But he too stressed that “all sides have a responsibility to refrain from provocative actions and rhetoric” – failing to call for the occupying power to be held accountable.

The US State Department said that it was “deeply concerned by the recent violence and escalating tensions.”

“We strongly condemn all acts of violence,” the US government said. “It is absolutely critical that all sides exercise restraint, refrain from provocative actions and rhetoric, and preserve unchanged the historic status quo on the Haram Al-Sharif/Temple Mount in word and in practice.”

The phrase “deeply concerned” is a formula the US has used routinely to criticize Israeli actions, such as the expansion of colonies on occupied Palestinian land.

In every past case it has meant, in practice, that the US will do absolutely nothing to restrain the Israeli aggressions it is condemning.

Video: Israeli man describes Muslims as Nazis at far-right rally in Frankfurt

Pegida and Zionism - a Natural Alliance

The article below, from Electronic Intifada, describes an Israeli man speaking at a Pegida (anti-Muslim) rally in Germany.  In the course of his racist rant he forgives those he is addressing for the minor matter of the holocaust as it is Muslims who are the main enemy.

Israeli fascists attack anti-war demonstration in Tel Aviv

This is of course natural and understandable.  When you engage in colonialism and the occupation and oppression of others, it is natural that you will identify with other imperialists.  Zionism during the holocaust collaborated and in the case of the Stern Gang/Lehi, offered them a military pact.  Today, 70 years later, it is understandable that ideology and practice come together.

Tony Greenstein

Video: Israeli man describes Muslims as Nazis at far-right rally in Frankfurt

Submitted by Rania Khalek on Tue, 02/03/2015 - 11:09

Ein Israeli spricht bzw. brüllt für Pegida Frankfurt

Addressing a recent rally in Frankfurt, a self-identified Israeli man equated Muslims with Nazis, murderers and rapists, and implored the crowd to “never feel ashamed” of Germany’s past. 

The rally was called by Pegida, or Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West, a far-right organization founded last October in Dresden. Its demonstrations initially attracted hundreds of people protesting what they believe is Islam’s takeover of Germany. More recently, the number of people to attend has been in the thousands.

Neo-Nazis give the traditional salute - at Yad Vashem, the Israeli memorial to the holocaust dead

An assortment of rightwing groups, including neo-Nazis, have been taking part. Following the attacks on the paper Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish supermarket in Paris last month, a 12 January rally drew more than 25,000 people.  

A video, which was posted to YouTube by Journal Frankfurt last week, shows a man, wrapped in a German flag, describing himself as an Israeli with German heritage during a Pegida rally. 

“I come from Israel. Germany is yours!” he tells the crowd, to thunderous cheers. 

He continues: “Germany’s not Nazis. I am Jewish. My family lived here in Germany for 700 years. And I can tell you that I see here no Nazis. The Nazis are in the left.

Neo-Nazis wave Israeli flag

“Right here I see only patriots who love their country and want to save Germany from the Islam that wants to take over, to take your traditions, to take your beliefs, to take all of you down. But we will not let it.”

After naming Muslims as the true Nazis, the man goes on to forgive Germany for the Nazi-led genocide of European Jews during the Second World War. 

Israeli Jewish neo-Nazis wear the symbols of their comrades in Europe

“We will stand together and we will face the real Nazis. The Nazis are inside the Islam mentality and those who want to sell Germany for votes,” he says, adding, “Israel is with Germany. We respect you, we forgive, we love you. You are the best country in the world. Save it.”

“All the world is looking at you now and we are proud. You are the true spirit of Germany,” he snarls. 

“Islam wants to take you and to drink from the milk of Germany.”

As the hate sermon continues, the man implores the crowd to “Never feel ashamed of yourselves, not even because of the past.”

He then declares himself a proud Islamophobe while advancing a blood libel against Muslims, characterizing them as rapists and murderers who must be feared. 

“The Muslims say that we are Islamophobes. Yes, I am Islamophobe because phobia is fear and I am afraid of murder. I am afraid to be raped,” he roars. 

“So they can call you Islamophobes, they can call you Nazis and racists. But we are not. We are Germans. We are patriots. We love this country.”

“Antifa [German slang for anti-fascists], fuck you! We are stronger! We will win!” 

Mosque defaced with swastikas

As smaller Pegida offshoots spread to other parts of the country, they have sometimes been met with even larger anti-racist counter-demonstrations.

Yet Pegida’s reach is growing as the group held its first demonstration in Austria, on Monday night. In the lead-up to the march, vandals defaced a Vienna mosque with swastikas. This was just the latest in a string of anti-Islam attacks across Austria. “In December unknown culprits left a pig’s head and intestines in front of the door of another mosque in the capital. A street sign was changed to read ‘Sharia Street’ in September,” the news agency AFP reported. 

In recent years, anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant incitement has become a rallying cry of the increasingly popular rightwing elements undergoing a resurgence across Europe. Although many right-wing European parties have neo-Nazi and anti-Semitic roots, they identify deeply with Israel and Zionism, which are often used as vehicles to promote hatred for Islam and multiculturalism in Europe as well as the United States. 

In some cases, formerly anti-Semitic political parties have seamlessly projected the anti-Semitic rhetoric they once espoused against Jews onto Muslim communities. 

Speaking to the media on the seventieth anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, Mattias Karlsson, leader of the far-right Swedish Democrats (SD), said, “the threat of Islamism is perhaps greater than it is from Nazism.” 

Rooted in fascism and the country’s neo-Nazi movement, SD captured 13 percent of the vote in the last general election, making it the third most popular political party in Sweden.

Kent Ekerot, an SD member and Jewish parliamentarian, has helped forge his party’s close relationship with the Israeli government. Although SD leaders continue to espouse anti-Jewish attitudes, Ekerot insists that anti-Semitism in Sweden is entirely “imported” and a result of “unrestricted immigration” of Arabs and Muslims, which he and his party fervently oppose.  

Emran Feroz, a journalist based in Germany, detailed the convergence of pro-Israel attitudes and right-wing European Islamophobia in an article for AlterNet last month:

Right-wing parties like the Austrian FPÖ [Freedom Party] have discovered that it is much easier for them to spread their hatred beneath pro-Israel cover. For instance, the FPÖ made it clear that “supporting the Jewish State against Islamism” has become one of their new political pillars. Marine Le Pen, leader of France’s National Front, has learned the same lesson, scrapping her father’s overt anti-Semitism and opposition to Europe’s special relationship with Israel and replacing it with an aggressively neoconservative outlook. In turn, she has attracted support from right-wing French Jews and cultivated a mainstream appeal her father [Jean-Marie Le Pen] could have only dreamed of. But the seething racism that was a hallmark of her father’s politics remains firmly entrenched in the platform of her National Front.

Geert Wilders and his Party of Freedom [in the Netherlands] were among the leaders of the European far-right’s alliance with Israel’s rightist Likud. In an interview with The Jerusalem Post’s Benjamin Weinthal, an American neoconservative operative funded by right-wing billionaire Sheldon Adelson, Wilders declared that Israel is the “only light of democracy in the Middle East.” He then demanded that the European Union and the United States stand by Israel’s side in the clash of civilizations — a war pitting the “Judeo-Christian” West against Islam. Wilders declared that the name of the state of Palestine should be changed to “Jordan,” suggesting that Palestinians either be forcibly expelled from their homes or stripped of national identity. In 2014, Wilders agitated unsuccessfully but flamboyantly for a commemoration for former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon in the Dutch parliament.

This hate is not isolated to the far-right, which only represents the most bellicose strain of an Islamophobia that is entrenched within the supposedly enlightened mainstream. 

As The Electronic Intifada’s Ali Abunimah has reported, the French authorities are targeting Muslims, including small children, in a draconian, authoritarian crackdown on free speech.

Nor is the hate isolated to Europe. 

From Dresden to Austin

On 29 January, when Muslim men, women and children from across Texas gathered in Austin to meet with lawmakers and learn about the political process during the seventh annual Texas Muslim Capitol Day, they were met with anti-Islam protesters waving Texas and Israeli flags and holding signs that read, “Radical Islam is the new Nazi” and “Go home & take Obama with you.”

As Muslim schoolchildren sang the American national anthem, the demonstrators shouted in their faces, “Islam is a lie!” and “No Sharia here!” 

Prior to the hate fest, Texas lawmaker Molly White took to Facebook to say that despite being away for recess she instructed her staff to subject Muslim constituents to loyalty oaths as a condition of entering her office, where she left an Israeli flag on her desk as an apparent symbol of her allegiance to America. 

“I did leave an Israeli flag on the reception desk in my office with instructions to staff to ask representatives from the Muslim community to renounce Islamic terrorist groups and publicly announce allegiance to America and our laws,” White wrote on her Facebook page. “We will see how long they stay in my office.” 

This followed a similar anti-Muslim demonstration in Texas last month. As The Electronic Intifada’s Patrick Strickland reported at the time, the Israeli flag was waved alongside the American flag by white Christian extremists to signify their hatred for Muslims. 

Israel is not responsible for the anti-Muslim hatred sweeping the West. But its role as a symbol of and cover for hate reflects shared values and a growing alliance between support for Israel and right-wing hatred for Islam in the West.