Ex-UJS Officer, David Herman Openly Advocates Murder of Jewish anti-Zionists - on Harry's Place

Even some socialists have been taken in by the ‘free speech’ pretensions of the overtly racist (in particular anti-Muslim racist) and pro-war site Harry’s Place. When one of their victims, Jenna Delich, foolishly and mistakenly posted a link to David Duke’s web site she was libelled by city solicitor David Toube as someone who ‘reads and takes her information on world events from neo Nazis.’

In return she threatened a libel action which resulted in HP being taken off the web by its ISP. Socialist Unity and others mistakenly saw a defence of free speech as being equivalent to supporting HP’s right to indulge in its usual bout of racist hate mongering.

An article by Mikey Ezra, the Barry George of the Zionist movement, purports to be a report of the debate between the AWL and CPGB on Iran/Palestine last week. Underneath there a remarkable post by one David Herman. Herman, was an officer with the Union of Jewish Students nearly 20 years ago. Since then he has become a minor film producer, one of whose productions appeared on Channel 4 some time ago, and is also listed as an Advisory Editor of Engage. . He is generally remembered as an unpleasant, humourless, thuggish but otherwise stupid.

Engage is a site which is devoted to smearing supporters of a Boycott of Israel as ‘anti-semitic.’ Although it portrays itself as a ‘leftist’ site, a cursory reading of its comments quickly shows that it shares much the same right-wing audience as Harry’s Place. It’s a strange form of leftism which includes as its guest posters people like the Zionist friend of Gilad Atzmon, Mad Mikey Ezra. See original.

But what was different from the normal abuse was an open call to violence by Herman, in a comment posted on 16th October 2008 at 2.13 p.m.

‘To cut through the nonsense - both Greenstien and Rance are long term anti-zionists who want to see Israel destroyed/disappear/be no more (take your pick) for some reason they believe the fact that they’re Jewish adds some moral weight to their position.
I believe they’re psychologically flawed fools who collaborate with the enemies of the Jewish people.
They should remember that in the Nazi ghettos of Europe and the townships of South Africa the first people that the resistance targeted were collaborators.
In less forgiving times they would be recei ving a necklace for hanukah!’

The implication is obvious.

Now Herman was never a student of history as he would be aware that Zionism specialised in collaboration with the Nazis and were likewise favoured by them. Most of the Chairmen of the Judenrat, Nazi appointed Jewish Councils were Zionists (Rumkowski, Gens, Czerniakow, Kareski to name but a few).

As even the late Zionist historian, Lucy Dawidowicz admitted:

"The only underground political organisation of significance soon after the German occupation [of Poland] was the Bund, with its centre in Warsaw" (War Against the Jews, pp. 322/3)

Likewise she wrote of Reinhardt Heydrich, described by Gerald Reitlinger in ‘The Final Solution’ as the ‘engineer’ of the Final Solution and his orders to the SS:
‘The activity of the Zionist orientated youth organisations are not to be treated with the strictness that it is necessary to apply to the members of the so-called German Jewish organisations (assimilationists).’

War Against the Jews, p. 118. And on 5 May 1935 Schwarze Korps, official organ of the SS, argued that the Jews had to be separated into 2 categories Zionists and assimilationists:

"The Zionists adhere to a strict racial position and by emigrating to Palestine are helping to build their own Jewish) state." whereas "The assimilation minded Jews deny their race and insist on their loyalty to Germany... in order to subvert National Socialist principles.’

All of this is well known, so when Jewish anti-Zionists are accused of ‘self-hatred’ it is the usual racist nonsense that was levelled by the Nazis at anti-fascist Germans. Literally hating the racial state means hating yourself because in the fascist world, the individual’s purpose is to serve the State.

But what is striking about Herman’s contribution is that it is an open call for murderous violence against anti-Zionist Jews, Roland Rance and Tony Greenstein in particular, but anyone who breaks from Zionism in the Jewish community. Anyone with a memory of the South African liberation struggle will remember that one of the least attractive aspects of the struggle in the townships was the advocacy by Winnie Mandela of placing burning tyres around the necks of victims.

That the nondescript Herman openly open advocates the murder of political opponents, anti-Zionist Jews, is not surprising. His associate Mikey, although friendly to the AWL also works with the openly fascist Prof. Steve Plaut of Haifa University a member of Kach, a Jewish Nazi party in Israel, posting fake e-mails to the Alef (Academic Left) site hosted by Professor Avraham Oz of Haifa.

But what is interesting is the comment of Mark Gardener, underneath that of Herman. Gardener is the Head of Communications of the shadowy Community Security Trust. The CST is behind the idea that anti-Semitism is increasing in Britain as a means of persuading British Jews to emigrate to Israel. He featured prominently in the Richard Littlejohn programme in June 2007 about ‘anti-Semitism’.

The CST is identified with the Herut/Betar Greater Israel wing of Zionism (though to be fair these distinctions are largely irrelevant today as Herman would probably also claim to still retain links with Labour Zionism). It is an extremely well funded organisation (over £5m income both in 2005 and 2006. Its accounts reveal nothing about its sources of funding and are usually delivered at the last minute, the 2007 ones have not been filed after nearly 10 months. It spends £500,000 of its money on fundraising and of its employees two earn between £60-70,000, one receives between £80-90,000 and one receives between £100-110,000. Clearly fighting ‘anti-Semitism’ is profitable for some people. The Jewish Chronicle last year described the CST as the most opaque of all Jewish charities.

Its Trustees are not, quite uniquely, listed on the Charity Commission site, having been given a dispensation. Likewise there is nothing about its activities and quite bizzarely it lists its only area of operation as Liverpool and surrounding areas. One of the few people who are listed in its accounts is one Gerald Ronson, jailed in the Guiness Affair many years ago. Ronson is well known as a Herut/Greater Israel supporter and owner of Britain’s largest private company, Heron. It would seem that the CST, which is well known for attacking Jewish leftists (including on one occasion even a supporter of the Zionist Mapam group) has also moved into the Kach orbit.

This is what Gardener says at 5.49 pm on 16.10.08: Leaving aside a long quote from Jews against Zionism which he has taken from a pro-Hizbollah site (whatever that is) rather than directly from the JAZ site:

‘Now, you can have a Talmudic disputation as to how the "dismantlement of the Zionist structure of the state of Israel" does not equal "smash Zionism" or "destroy Israel" but I’m in David Herman’s (considerable) shadow on this one. We know where Rance and Greenstein stand, we know their previous, and its exactly why pro-Hizbollah websites carry their propaganda. Duh.’

Duh indeed. When Herman advocates ‘necklacing’ of his political opponents, Gardener’s only response is that ‘I’m in David Herman’s (considerable) shadow on this one’. Quite! Of course Herut used to have a long record of physically attacking all pro-Palestinian meetings but, theoretically at least, there was a distinction between them and open fascists in the Kach group. Clearly that is no longer the case and Gardner too is now supportive of fascist violence (as long as it’s not against Zionist Jews). A strange position of course for someone who makes a good living (£110,000?) from ‘fighting anti-Semitism’ and with whom the Police openly work. But what it does do is destroy the notion that the CST is an impartial and unbiased recorder of anti-semitic incidents, as some believe.

Tony Greenstein

The Arab-Jewish Clashes in Acre and the Connection to Israel's Extremist Settlers

A man walks past a car with a damaged windshield following the Acre clashes.
By Ali Abunimah Palestine Center Fellow

Acre, a mixed city of approximately 52,000 people in northern Israel, recently witnessed four days of violent clashes between Palestinian citizens of Israel and Israeli Jewish residents. While the facts and meaning of these events have been heavily contested, one of the underreported factors is the extent to which militant Israeli settlers from the West Bank, funded by donors in the United States, have instigated tension in Acre and other cities in an attempt to reduce their Arab populations. This brief will summarize the facts available from public sources and provide background and analysis.

Israeli leaders have presented the events in Acre as unfortunate intercommunal violence in an otherwise peaceful city. Palestinians have perceived them-correctly it would appear-as being related to efforts organized by Jewish extremists to force Arabs out of the city (Palestinians in Israel are citizens of the state and are often also referred to as "Arabs").

What Happened?

The disturbances began after a Palestinian resident of Acre drove into the eastern predominantly Jewish neighborhood around midnight on Wednesday, 9 October 2008 during the observance of the Yom Kippur Jewish holiday. This prompted a violent reaction from Jewish residents and soon, the Israeli daily Haaretz reported, "Police warded off hundreds of Jewish rioters, chanting 'death to the Arabs,' and trying to storm the city's main road."1 As word spread of the attack on the Arab driver, hundreds of Arab youths came to the scene.

Violent clashes between Jewish and Arab residents continued for several nights as police intervened with riot control methods including water cannons. According to Israeli police, many Arab families had to be evacuated and about a dozen Arab homes were set on fire. 2

Brutal scenes were alleged and witnessed over four days. For example, an Israeli journalist witnessed Jewish youths armed with stones moving around the city looking for Palestinian citizens to attack and shouting, "Death to the Arabs." In one case, they mistakenly attacked a Jew (most of Acre's Jewish residents are Mizrahi Jews who originally came to Israel from Arab countries). 3

When Arab residents, who were forced out of their homes by Jewish attacks, attempted to return under police guard to retrieve belongings, they were stoned by Jews who shouted racial epithets at them. 4 Israel army radio and Arab residents of the city claimed that dozens of extremists affiliated with the West Bank settler movement had come in to Acre to take part in the violence (see below).5 La'a Ramal, an Arab resident whose home was attacked, said that her house had been torched three times in recent years, and several families had already left the area as a result of persistent intimidation. 6

Jewish residents told reporters that Arabs armed with axes came into their neighborhood, destroyed cars and shops and shouted, "Death to the Jews." David Azoulay, an Israeli Jewish Knesset member from the religious Shas party who lives in Acre, said, "I myself heard them [the Arabs] calling, 'Allahu Akbar! Kill the Jews!'" This was denied by Palestinian Israeli Knesset member Abbas Zakour, who also lives in the city. 7 Other reports stated that rumors had spread through the Arab old city that an Arab man had been killed, prompting Arab residents into the streets. 8

In the end, 54 people-Jews and Arabs-were arrested and about 100 cars and several dozen shops were damaged. Several minor injuries were reported. While Jews and Arabs took part in the violence, on 12 October 2008, on the third day of the disturbances, Major-General Shimon Koren, commander of Israel's Northern District police, said the riots had been instigated by Jews and "the majority of rioters causing disturbances in [Acre] are Jews."9

How Did It Begin?

According to Acre resident Tawfiq Jamal's own account, he drove into a predominantly Jewish area with his son and a friend at around 11 p.m. in order to pick up his daughter from the home of relatives where she had been helping prepare baked sweets for a wedding. When they arrived, according to Jamal:

I asked my son to take the baking dishes out of the car and proceeded to walk (toward the house) when (the Jews) suddenly began hurling stones at us. The stones hit my son and the car. My son was lying down because [he] was hit in the face, back and chest; I managed to grab him and pull him into the building.

The three men went into the building and called the police and emergency services, who arrived after a few minutes. However, Jamal stated, "Throughout the entire time, despite police presence, the [Jewish] youngsters continued to throw rocks and chant 'death to the Arabs,' while my son's face was bleeding and his friend almost passed out."10

Jamal recounted that he and the two youths were then evacuated by police and told to take shelter in a squad car. When the car did not start, the police fled and told Jamal and the two youths to do the same. Jamal stated that they were saved only by a Jewish night watchman who hid them in his guard booth, locked the door and turned off the lights. Jamal compared his situation to that of two Israeli soldiers wearing civilian clothes who were captured and brutally killed by a Palestinian mob in Ramallah in December 2000 and feared that his group's fate would be the same.

Jamal strenuously denied allegations he had been drinking and deliberately started the incident by playing loud music. Israeli police also alleged that an unnamed Arab youth had broken into a mosque and used the loudspeaker system to alert Arab residents of the attack and to call for help after receiving a phone call from Jamal's brother. They stated the suspect had not been arrested because he had fled. 11 Acre Police Commander Avraham Edri partially confirmed Jamal's account, telling the Knesset's Internal Affairs Committee that:
When my officers arrived at the scene, they had to handle 300-400 people who had already lifted the driver's car in the air. Our first mission was to prevent casualties. We released the driver from the mob and helped him into an apartment nearby...My staff served as a barrier between him and the excited mob; the policemen were hurt but not one civilian was injured.12

Speaking before the Knesset committee on October 12, Jamal apologized for driving into the Jewish area and said he had "made a mistake." Despite this, Israeli police arrested Jamal for "harming religious sensitivities, speeding and reckless endangerment" and remanded him in custody. There were no reports of arrests specifically for the attempted lynching of Jamal and his companions. 13

The Settler Connection

Palestinian citizens of Israel and Israeli Jews live in close proximity in Acre, a U.N. World Heritage site, as they have done for generations. But in recent years, extremist Jewish groups affiliated with West Bank settlers have moved in with the stated aim of making the city more Jewish.

Palestinians are concentrated in the central old city and near the harbor while Jews are established in the eastern part and outer rings. The vast majority of the Jewish residents of the city are Mizrahim-working class Jews whose first generation came as immigrants to Israel from Arab countries. Mizrahim, although Jews, also faced severe discrimination by an Israeli state dominated by European Ashkenazi Jewish elites. Both communities are disadvantaged in different ways. Many Palestinians in the city are the survivors and descendants of those who were forced to leave their homes when Israel was established in 1948. All but 3,000 of the city's 13,000 Palestinian citizens in 1948 were forced out. Today, Palestinians comprise about 27 percent of the city's population. Like all Palestinian citizens of Israel, they have experienced systematic legal, social and economic discrimination and political exclusion. Mizrahim were often pushed to the edges of Israeli Jewish society and in many cases were housed in the former homes of expelled Palestinians. 14 Culturally marginalized and much poorer than Ashkenazi Jews, the Mizrahim have become the base constituency for the right-wing Likud party, Shas and other overtly racist anti-Arab parties.

Given the numbers of people involved in the troubles, long-time Jewish residents were certainly among them. But some Arab residents blamed the worsening tension not on long-time residents but on an influx of militant youth affiliated with the national religious West Bank settler movement. Indeed, Baruch Marzel, a settler leader from near Hebron in the West Bank, visited Acre during the riots and vowed to help Jews in the city to set up a "defense organization."15 Barzel was a leader of the banned Kach party founded by the late Meir Kahane, which supports the expulsion of all Palestinians, and he remains a prominent leader of racist settler groups.

Yeshivat Hesder-Akko founded in 2001 is a pro-settler national religious school in the midst of a now majority Arab neighborhood called Wolfson. Over the years, many of the area's Jewish residents had become more affluent and moved out, and poorer Arabs moved in. The Yeshiva is run by Yossi Stern, a rabbi from the militant West Bank settlement of Elon Moreh. Stern, who is also on the Acre city council, told The Washington Post last year that he and his associates were working on projects designed to "attract Jews to Acre," including a 350 unit housing complex designated for Jewish military families and another yeshiva. Palestinian residents and leaders consider these efforts to be part of a systematic assault on their presence in the city using tactics long deployed against Palestinians in the West Bank.16 Some accuse Acre's Likud mayor of supporting the efforts.

Yeshivat Hesder-Akko's own website states that "[f]rom a luxuriant Jewish neighborhood it [Wolfson] has turned into a decrepit Arab neighborhood." The school, whose students are Israeli military-religious trainees, is to "to try to return and strengthen the Jewish character of the city." Although the city was "almost lost" to Jews, the site states that "the long awaited salvation has begun." According to the website, the yeshiva was built with funds from a donor in New York.17 Volunteers have also raised funds from synagogues in the United States for the "special aim of the yeshiva [which] is to attract more young Jewish families by strengthening and maintaining the Zionist Jewish character of this ancient Jewish city."18

Two years ago, similar but much less serious disturbances occurred in Acre during another Jewish holiday. Arab Knesset member Zakour had previously written to Israel's public security minister appealing for police protection for the Arab communities against harassment by Jewish extremists, including the stoning of Arab cars during Jewish holidays.

An almost identical hesder-yeshiva (this term means a school for Israeli men who combine religious study with service in Israeli army units) was recently founded in the Arab Ajami neighborhood of Jaffa, south of Tel-Aviv, also with the goal of increasing the Jewish population of that city.19

The events in Acre coincide with an upsurge in violence by the radical settler movement against Palestinians across the Israeli-occupied West Bank including a pipe bomb attack against an Israeli left-wing professor. 20 While those actions have received more attention, the activities of affiliated groups against Palestinian citizens of Israel have been largely ignored.

Reactions in Israel

Arab leaders in Acre met with police officials and publicly called for calm and reconciliation, and they also condemned Jamal's incursion into the Jewish area regardless of how innocent. On October 12, Arab Knesset member Abbas Zakour accompanied Jamal to Israel's parliament to make his public apology in an attempt to appease the Jewish community and restore calm. Yossi Beilin, leader of the Left-Zionist Meretz party, blamed Israel's neglect of the Arab community, particularly since the October 2000 shooting of 12 Palestinian citizens of Israel by the police.21 One Palestinian member of the Knesset called the clashes "a pogrom perpetrated by Jews against Arab residents" and accused the police of discrimination.

Israeli national leaders, including caretaker Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Prime Minister designate Tzipi Livni and President Shimon Peres, called for calm and called on "both sides" to refrain from violence. They portrayed the events as being religious and communal in origin and did not note the political context of efforts to judaize the city. Peres visited Acre and convened a meeting of Arab and Jewish civic and religious leaders aimed at restoring peace. 22

Sheikh Ra'ed Salah, the head of Israel's Islamic movement, accused Israeli political and religious leaders of facilitating the actions of extremists over a long period of time with the goal of heightening tensions so that Palestinians inside Israel could eventually be expelled. He said Acre's Palestinian population was being targeted for "cleansing" and that Arabs in other coastal cities including Haifa and Jaffa could be next. 23 The fears that events in Acre were evidence of a concerted effort to expel them were widely echoed by Palestinians in Israel.

Some of the Israeli politicians who have been most outspoken in calling for the expulsion of Palestinians and supporting radical settlers did their best to confirm such fears, engaging in the kind of incitement that has been escalating in recent years. 24 Knesset member, former cabinet minister and settler Effie Eitam called the events "an anti-Semitic pogrom at the heart of Israel on the holiest days of the Jewish people." Another member called on the authorities to "respond harshly to the Arab pogrom on Yom Kippur." Esterina Tartman, a Knesset member of former Deputy Prime Minister Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beitenu Party, called for the removal of Palestinians citizens from Israel on the grounds that "the pogrom in [Acre] is yet another confirmation that Arab Israelis are the real danger threatening the state." 25

Some Jewish residents of the city circulated calls for Jews to boycott Arab businesses to punish the Palestinian population. 26

Reactions among Other Palestinians

Palestinians in the 1967 Occupied Territories generally viewed the events in Acre as a continuation of Israeli state violence of the kind routinely directed against them. They also reasserted their identification and solidarity with Palestinians inside Israel.

Hamas' Ismail Haniyeh, prime minister of the Palestinian Authority (PA) elected in January 2006 and now confined to Gaza, said that his "government was following with concern what was happening in Acre and what the Arab Palestinian population was facing by way of vicious attacks by Zionist settlers." Haniyeh added that these attacks were part of a strategy to force Palestinians out of their land and homes." A Hamas-affiliated website also condemned what it called the silence of the Arab regimes and the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah. 27

Hundreds of Palestinians in Gaza City took part in a "popular conference in solidarity with the people of Acre" at which leaders of many political factions expressed unity with Palestinians in Israel.28 Thousands marched in a solidarity rally in Gaza's Jabalya refugee camp.

A handful of Palestinian resistance factions said they could take "revenge" if actions targeting Palestinians in Acre continued. 29

A search for official reactions from the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority headed by President Mahmoud Abbas did not yield any results.

Analysis

Although Israel has officially recognized the systematic discrimination faced by the country's Palestinian citizens and the fact that little has ever been done to address it, Israeli leaders tended to view the events in Acre as being about "Arab-Jewish" community relations inside the country. They typically respond to Arab-Jewish tensions with promises of better funding for Arab communities, although such pledges are almost never fulfilled.

The violent actions of settler groups against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank have gone unchecked by the Israeli army. There is now clear evidence of similar organized, planned violence being directed at Palestinians inside Israel. There is no sign that the Israeli state is prepared to confront it any more than it does in the West Bank. Unless this changes, there is a strong likelihood that violence may resume and spread notwithstanding the precariously restored calm. This may destroy the remaining threads of coexistence inside Israel. Jewish extremists would see that as a success if their goal is to create the conditions for the removal of Palestinians from Israel.

Palestinians across the political spectrum, inside and outside Israel, saw the events as a manifestation of the wider Palestinian-Israeli conflict rather than a local community-relations matter. For Palestinian citizens of Israel, the events highlighted their own precarious situation in the face of mounting racist incitement against them by Israeli politicians and media. The arrest and detention of Tawfiq Jamal, even after he publicly apologized at the Knesset and barely escaped from a lynch mob according to official sources, is likely to be seen as a further provocation and injustice by beleaguered Palestinians in Israel.

Historically, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Palestinian Authority have refused to represent the interests of Palestinians inside Israel. Despite this, Palestinians at the grassroots level throughout historic Palestine and the diaspora have maintained their ties. They are expressing new forms of cross-border solidarity and political action.

The international community has always treated Israel's violations of the rights of the 1.5 million Palestinians inside Israel as an internal matter. The events in Acre, and especially the role of the national religious settler movement, provide early warning that this already inadequate approach will be even more ill-equipped to cope with spreading strife that will not respect lines on a map.

Ali Abunimah is a fellow at the Palestine Center in Washington, DC. He is an expert on Palestine, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and is the author of One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse. Abunimah also co-founded The Electronic Intifada, an online publication about Palestine and the Palestine-Israeli conflict, Electronic Iraq and Electronic Lebanon.
The views expressed in this information brief are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The Jerusalem Fund.

1 Jack Khoury, Nadav Shragai and Yoav Stern, "Acre sees worst violence in years as Jews and Arabs resume clashes," Haaretz (website), 9 October 2008, Update of 21.29.

2 Ammar Awwad, "Israel's Acre suffers third night of violence," Reuters, 11 October 2008, (), Accessed 13 October 2008.

3 Yaakov Lappin, "Eyewitness: 'This is our city'," The Jerusalem Post, 12 October 2008, , Accessed 13 October 2008.

4 (In Arabic) Ra'id Dlasha, "Akka: atfal wa nisaa' 'arabiyat yata'aradoun li'itidaa' saafir; al-shurta tu'azziz quwwat biwahdat khasa wa quwat musta'ariba," Arabs 48, 13 October 2008, 13 October 2008.

5 (In Arabic) "Masadir israiliyya tu'akkid tadaffuq 'adad min nushataa' al-haraka al-istitaniyya ila akka," Arabs 48, 13 October 2008 Accessed 13 October 2008.

6 Ahiya Raved, "Akko: Displaced Arab families made eligible for public housing," Ynet, 13 October 2008, Accessed 13 October 2008.

7 "Acre driver apologizes for incident," The Jerusalem Post, 12 October 2008.

8 See Isabel Kershner, "Israeli City Divided by Sectarian Violence," The New York Times, 12 October 2008, .

9 Sharon Roffe-Ofir, "Northern District police commander: Majority of Akko riots are Jews," Ynet, 12 October 2008, Accessed 13 October 2008; See also, Sharon Roffe-Ofir, "Police official says intigators of Akko riots Jewish," Ynet, 12 October 2008, Accessed 13 October 2008.

10 Sharon Roffe-Ophir, "Arab motorist: I narrowly escaped lynch in Akko," Ynet, 9 October 2008. Accessed 13 October 2008.

11 Hagai Einav, "Akko: 54 arrested in 4 days of riots," Ynet, , Accessed 13 October 2008.

12 "Acre driver apologizes for incident," The Jerusalem Post, 12 October 2008, Accessed 13 October 2008.

13 Jack Khoury, "Police arrest driver who sparked Acre riots for 'harming religious sensitivities'," Haaretz, 13 October, 2008.

14 See Joseph Massad, "Zionism's internal others: Israel and the Mizrahim," in The Persistence of the Palestinian Question, (Routledge, 2006).

15 See Sharon Roffe-Ofir, "Peres visits Akko, urges side to exercise tolerance," Ynet, 13 October 2008 , Accessed 13 October 2008.

16 See Scott Wilson, "Israel's Arab Citizens, Isolation and Exclusion," The Washington Post, 20 December 2007.

17 See "About Us" page on Yeshivat Hesder-Akko's website, Accessed 13 October 2008.

18 Abigail Klein Leichman, "Back from Akko to help hesder yeshiva," The New Jersey Jewish Standard, 21 June 2006.

19 Eli Senyor, "Jaffa: Yeshiva to be built in heart of Arab neighborhood," Ynet, 24 September 2008.

20 See Jonathan Cook, "State's weak responses make Jewish extremism stronger," The National, 27 September 2008.

21 Yoav Stern and Yuval Azoulay, "Livni tells Acre residents: Don't take law into your own hands," Haaretz, 10 October 2008.

22 Jack Khoury, "Peres in Acre: We have many religions, but one set of laws," Haaretz, 13 October 2008, Accessed 13 October 2008.

23 (In Arabic) "Ahdath akka ... samt murib li sultat ramallah wa ghiyab lilnitham al-rasmi al-'arabi," Palestinian Information Center, 13 October 2008, Accessed 13 October 2008.

24 See Ali Abunimah, "Anti-Arab Racism and Incitement in Israel" Palestine Center Information Brief No. 161, 25 March 2008.

25 Amnon Meranda, "MK Eitam slams 'anti-Semitic pogrom in heart of Israel," Ynet, 9 October 2008. Accessed 13 October 2008.

26 Ahiya Raved, "Akko: Jewish residents call for boycott on Arab businesses," Ynet, 11 October 2008.

27 (In Arabic) "Ahdath akka ... samt murib li sultat ramallah wa ghiyab lilnitham al-rasmi al-'arabi," Palestinian Information Center, 13 October 2008, Accessed 13 October 2008.

28 (in Arabic) "Ghazza: al-mi'at sharaku fil mu'tamar al-sha'bi allathi nathamhu markaz filastin lildirasat walbuhuth ma' ahali madinat 'akka," Arabs 48, 12 October 2008.

29 "Gaza militants vow revenge for Acre violence," Xinhua, 12 October 2008.

ACRE - A pogrom perpetrated by Jews against Arab residents

One of the pogromists
A car window smashed by the pogromists

Israeli police forces out on the streets in the northern city of Acre, where rioting has continued for three nights.

Acre burning, like Mississippi or Johannesburg!

On Thursday, Israeli Arab MK Ahmed Tibi (Ra'am-Ta'al) responded to the clashes in the northern city , calling the violence a "pogrom perpetrated by Jews against Arab residents."

The word pogrom has a resonance in the history of European Jews. In Odessa in 1881-2 hundreds died as a result of the pogroms instigated by the Czarist rulers. In Kishinev in 1903 a similar pogrom took place and throughout the Pale of Settlement pogroms were a regular feature of Jewish life. It was this, more than anything else, that brought the anti- General Union of Jewish Workers in Lithuania, Poland, and Russia into existence. Whilst the Zionists were busy dreaming of emigrating to Palestine in order to further their plans for colonial settlement, the Bund set up self-defence squads.

Who then could have believed that the ‘Jewish State’ would complete the circle and turn Jews into pogromists and Palestinians into the equivalent of the Jews of Czarist Russia? And even the reaction of the Police is no different to the Czarist police who like their Israeli counteparts, would arrest and attack the victims. Below is an article by a prominent Israeli Palestinian activist.

And of course, in the best traditions of the Nazis and anti-Semites, the pogrom against the Palestinians is being portrayed inside Israel as an anti-Jewish pogrom!

As the Israel National News site states:

'Jewish residents of Akko (Acre) in northern Israel spent Yom Kippur eve in an unusual fashion: they were the targets of a pogrom by their Arab neighbors.'. Monday, October 13, 2008 7:30 PM

The two following excerpts from reports in today's Haaretz on the Israeli-Jewish pogrom against Palestinians in Acre demonstrate how Israel is a much more evolved version of apartheid.

Zionism's grand deception and spin master of all times, Shimon Peres, is, again, called to the rescue, muddying any possible insight into the nature of Israel's regime of racial discrimination against the indigenous Palestinians. This is a job Peres has perfected. After the Jenin massacre, it was Peres who played the most significant role in scrapping the international commission of inquiry's investigation. After the first Qana massacre which he was personally responsible for, the same. And so on.

Here, without any sense of shame, Peres repeats the same lies that any Palestinain kid can refute: that the same law applies to Jews and "non-Jews" in Israel. The indigenous Palestinians, Muslims and Christians, denied the right to own, rent or live on 93% of the land of the state of Israel think otherwise.

The Palestinian victims -- all Israeli citizens, of course -- of Jewish terrorists in Shafa 'Amr and Jeruslem know otherwise.

The Palestinian cancer patients dying slowly due to the intentional and so far unscrutinized proliferation of polluting Israeli industrial and military sites on or in close proximity to their lands know otherwise. After all, an official, multi-year mapping of cancer in Israel studied the incidence of the disease and its correlation to the existence of polluting sites in every Jewish town, Kibbutz, city and village, but omitted every single Palestinian town or village in Israel (with the exception of Rahat). And so on....

In Acre, the Palestinian man who experienced the lynching attempt by a fanatic Jewish mob was arrested for "speeding and reckless endangerment." Blaming the victim 101!!

Israel is sophisticated, evolved, and has unmatched influence over western media outlets ... but it is still apartheid.
Omar Barghouti

Peres in Acre: We have many religions, but one set of laws

President Shimon Peres on arrived in Acre on Monday, after clashes between the city's Arab and Jewish populations raged for several days, to attend a Muslim-Jewish conference, during which he called for an end to violence, saying "though there are several religions in Israel, there is only one law and one police. ... Nobody wants the Muslims to be Jewish and the Jews to be Muslim, but in Israel the law must be respected. There is one law and one police."

Last update - 21:10 13/10/2008

Police arrest driver who sparked Acre riots for 'harming religious sensitivities'

The Arab man who drove into a Jewish neighborhood in Acre on the eve of Yom Kippur, sparking a series of riots and violent clashes, was arrested by Police Monday for speeding and reckless endangerment in connection to the incident. Later Monday, An Acre court extended Tawfik's remand by five days pending further investigation.

An unnecessary prize for violence
Haaretz Editorial
The Knesset Internal Affairs and Environment Committee will convene today to discuss the difficult events taking place in Acre and the decision of mayor Shimon Lankri to cancel the Fringe Theater Festival, which was scheduled to open in the city during the intermediate days of Sukkot.

Lankri claims the atmosphere of "anger and offense" among residents will not allow the festival to take place. However, committee chair Ophir Pines-Paz is certain the event is an important means of strengthening Acre's image as a cultural center and symbol of coexistence. "Canceling the festival is a prize for violence," Pines-Paz said.

Lankri's decision is hasty and mistaken. Police commanders said that large numbers of security forces would be needed to secure the festival area even after the storm dies down, but they did not recommend canceling the event. Why then does Lankri rush, at the end of the holiday and the peak of the riots, to call on the "nation of Israel" to throng to the festival, only to make the opposite statement shortly afterward?

The mayor's helplessness is fanning the flames of the city's bonfire of the vanities, which will anyway require greater efforts to extinguish. The false impression of calm, controlled coexistence in a city that is not really mixed but built of neighborhoods of separate populations, conceals explosive rage and bitterness caused by the residents' ever-growing struggle.

Even the Jews who settled in the city in different periods since the state's founding were mostly poor new immigrants. These new weak classes added to the existing poverty and distress of the Arabs, and the city suffered from severe negative migration. In recent years, since the decision by former prime minister Ariel Sharon to strengthen Jewish communities in mixed cities, Acre's Jews have enjoyed tax reductions and generous budget allocations, giving the city a facelift.

There were other sides to Acre's "Judaization.' The Jewish neighborhood of professional army officers in the north of the city and the Hesder yeshiva (which combines army service with Torah study) are active. But these only deepened the already strong feelings of discrimination and offense among Arab residents.

Religious, economic and social tensions therefore deepened - and not for religious or nationalistic reasons, as some extremist political voices have claimed. A clear example of this came with the October 2000 riots, in which 12 Israeli Arab citizens and a Palestinian were killed by police during demonstrations in the city of Umm al-Fahm.

The Or Commission, established to investigate the tragic event, emphasized the link between the systematic discrimination suffered by Israel's Arab citizens and the bitterness, anger and frustration that resulted in the escalation of the usual Land Day demonstration held every year. The commission members delineated the various areas of discrimination and showed how every successive government failed to fulfill its promises to the Arab public. But despite the grave warning sounded by the commission, no government has implemented even one of its recommendations.

There is no shortcut in trying to calm spirits in Acre or anywhere else, and such efforts must be made in every government ministry by means of a comprehensive and courageous program. Canceling the festival, which will primarily hurt Arab merchants in the city, adds unnecessary weight to the calls to "punish the Arabs," and is the exact opposite of such a plan.

Last update - 17:03 12/10/2008
Acre Jews warn: Arabs will kill you with knives
By Gideon Levy

A young woman - kerchief on her head, baby in her arms - stood behind the barred windows of her apartment yesterday and shouted: "Get all the Arabs out of here... We don't want them here... They've made our lives a misery."

The balcony blinds of the adjacent apartment are shattered. Its former residents, the family of Mahmoud Samary, are gone, having temporarily fled the hail of stones on their home. The young woman yelled: "They should get out. The Arabs are taking all our girls."

It was Saturday afternoon at number 18, Burla Street in Acre - part of a crowded, shamefully neglected housing project where three Arab families and 29 Jewish families inhabit a single building. At the entrance to the building, a group of policemen stood around idly. The street was lined with cars with shattered windows.

It was not only Bosnia that Acre called to mind yesterday; the city was also reminiscent of Nablus - checkpoints at every corner, hundreds of policemen under every parched tree. A city that could have been a tourist attraction was instead the most miserable in Israel. My colleague Jack Khoury, an Israeli Arab, said as we entered the neighborhood: "I don't believe I'm traveling here in such fear and tension."

A young man who lives in the project told us aggressively: "Don't you dare enter the Old City. The Arabs will kill you with knives." He would like us to leave his neighborhood, too.

But the Old City, just a few minutes' drive away, was another world: In that beautiful but neglected neighborhood, which was virtually empty yesterday, people were mourning the cancelation of Acre's theater festival and still speaking of peace and coexistence.

Acre went up in flames all at once. It was a clash between poor and poor, Jews and Arabs, egged on by nationalists, with a religious holiday as the catalyst - the most dangerous of all possible clashes, which threatens to ignite a conflagration. The fire could be out by press time, but as of yesterday afternoon it seemed liable to break out anew: Young men from the housing project had agreed to meet at 7:30 P.M. that evening, God only knows why.

Yet even if the fire is extinguished now, it will reignite someday. This binational city is sitting on a volcano - a volcano of nationalism and distress, fear and hatred.

If the housing project was the tensest party of the city, the saddest was the Old City, where the empty halls were all that remained of the theater festival that was supposed to have taken place this week. The spotlights had been removed, the actors and directors were gone, the tables in the cafe on the lawn remained folded. Instead of the festival, Acre got a scandal - the scandal of its cancelation.

The technical crews said it was outrageous to cancel the most important event of Acre's year "because of 100 or 200 psychos." They suggested holding a reconciliation festival instead, and promised to ensure the guests' safety. "You also fight with your wife, but then you go to bed with her," analogized one, Asfari Khalil.

Munir Abu al-Tayir, who sells pomegranate juice, had thus far sold exactly two glasses all day. At a nearby felafel booth, a young Arab responded to Jewish claims that the riots were provoked by an Arab driver blasting music on Yom Kippur by saying that during Ramadan, the Jews had offended Arab sensibilities by drinking beer, but there were no Arab riots. Issam Jalem, owner of a barbershop, warned that without the festival, "things will not be good."

To all, it was clear that Mayor Shimon Lankri's hasty decision to cancel the festival had one purpose, and one only: to punish the Arabs who earn their living from the event.

F., an Arab resident of the largely-Jewish Kibbutz Galuyot Street, fled his house with his wife and children; now he fears the house will be torched. Salim Najami, a city councilor, denounced all extremists, Jewish and Arab alike. Daoud Halila, director of an Arab non-profit organization, accused the police of "pampering the Jews." Long-time communist Salim Atrash blamed the disengagement from Gaza, saying an extremist yeshiva that opened in the city following the pullout has been fanning the flames.

Atrash pulled out a copy of a notice that has been cirlating on the Internet: "We will no longer buy anything from Arabs, we will not honor any of their holidays or any place of theirs. Arabs of Acre, go find your place in the villages." The notice was signed with an epigram: "A Jew is the son of a king, an Arab is the son of a dog."
Welcome to a little Bosnia in the making.

See also the Alternative Information Centre report

Atzmon Eats Humble Pie for Suggesting that the answer to The Financial Crisis is Dejudification!

Atzmon's 'subtle' association of Jews, Zionism and Financial Crisis

They say you can't keep a mad dog down and that is certainly true of the anti-semitic jazz player, Gilad Atzmon. Previously he has suggested that the sleaze factor in British politics was because of the presence of Jews and Jewish money. Unsurprisingly he sees the hidden hand of the same people involved in the present financial crisis. Its the Jews wot done it!

In an article Credit Crunch or rather Zio Punch for the Palestine Think Tank, run by fellow anti-Semite Mary Rizzo, Atzmon wrote that:

'John Reynolds ends his latest Observer commentary on the ethical implications of the current economic disaster with the following words: "Above all we need more individuals to make a stand. The Archbishops of Canterbury and York should go further and call for more Christians to work in the city." (John Reynolds, chief executive of Reynolds Partners, and chairman of the Ethical Investment Advisory Group, The Observer 28.9.08). One may wonder what Reynolds refers to when calling for more ‘Christians to work in the City’. I tend to believe that more than just a few people out there do understand pretty well what Reynolds is suggesting. Reynolds, the chairman of the Ethical Investment Advisory Group protests against the non-ethical spirit that has been abundant in the City for more than a while. By pleading the Archbishops of Canterbury and York to send more Christians to the City he may try to suggest to us that our financial world must be spiritually de-Judified. I must admit that it took me by complete surprise to read such a suggestion in the politically correct Guardian. I wonder how it happened that such an idea filtered through.

Now it is obvious to anyone who is not an inveterate anti-Semite that Reynolds was saying nothing whatsoever about Jews in the City of London. His aim was targetted at the unsavoury greedy practices of city dealers as a whole, regardless of religion. As a committed Christian he obviously believes, however naive that might be, that religious Christians might introduce some ethics in the City. Of course those of us who are socialists would say that greed, corruption, theft etc. are integral to the operation of the money markets. However there was nothing in what Reynolds wrote which even hinted at Jews being specifically targetted.

But Atzmon is, of course, a dedicated anti-Semite. When the Sleaze Question in New Labour raised its head, then in jumped Atzmon to suggest that it was Zionist, i.e. Jewish money that was the problem.

Unfortunately for Atzmon he was rumbled rather quickly and this apology soon appeared on Rizzo's Think Tank Cesspit.

Clarification:In the course of an article entitled "Credit Crunch or rather Zio Punch?" I recently made a comment about Mr John Reynolds, the Chief Executive of Reynolds Partners and chairman of the Ethical Investment Advisory Group. I suggested that some people may think that his call in The Observer to send more Christians to the City was a plea for the financial world to be "spiritually de-Judified". I want to make it clear that I did not intend to suggest that Mr Reynolds was anti-Semitic or in any way hostile to Jewish people or those of the Jewish faith and I am sorry if my comment was understood by anybody in that way. Mr Reynolds has asked me to clarify the position and I am happy to do so. I would like to apologise for any distress caused.

Sad news about Irene Bruegel, founder of Jews for Justice for Palestinians (JFJFP)

It was with shock that I learnt of the death of the founder of Jews for Justice for the Palestinians, Irene Bruegel. JfJP was a key part in the undermining of the Zionist hegemony over the Jewish community in Britain. I had and have many disagreements with JfJP, not least its woolly non-Zionist politics, its support for 2 states and its disavowal of activism or Boycott, which resulted in political incoherence at times. There is however no doubt that JfJP's growth marked a change in the previous wall to wall support for Israel by the Jewish community and Irene herself was indefatiguable. She will be missed.

Tony Greenstein

Dear friends,

We are very sorry to have to write with such bad news but Irene Bruegel, founder and long time Secretary of JfJfP, has died. Her immediate family was with her and she died peacefully.

Irene had long ago been diagnosed with a degenerative auto-immune liver disease for which the only treatment was a transplant. To be considered for this she needed to have an ovarian cyst removed - an operation from which she never recovered because her liver was already so severely depleted.

Irene's energy, commitment and creativity and that of her partner Richard Kuper, were central to the establishment and spectacular growth of JfJfP. She returned from a trip to the West Bank at the end of 2001, determined to do something, and when she was determined, something usually got done. From a meeting of fifteen of Irene and Richard's friends in a pub near Kings Cross, JfJfP has grown into one of the biggest and most influential Jewish organisations campaigning for the end of the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories and the negotiation of a just and peaceful settlement in Israel/Palestine. Irene was brimful of ideas about extending JfJfP's work. She avoided sloganizing, ever aware of the importance of reaching people who might join in a campaign for justice, if they were only prompted in a constructive way. She was usually the one who picked up the pieces if one of us dropped them.

For several years Irene also chaired JfJfP's charitable offshoot - the British Shalom Salaam Trust. Her loyalty, determination and tenacity ensured that BSST became a hugely important lifeline for dozens of grassroots education, health, peace and cultural projects on both sides of the Green Line.
In this year, the sixtieth anniversary of Israel' s foundation, Irene had two priorities - that the sixtieth anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba be remembered, and that we celebrate the courage of all those Israelis whose lives are committed to combating the occupation. The 'Another Israel' exhibition, which she organized, oversaw, and which continues to be dispatched all over Britain , is a memorial to her imagination and enthusiasm.

Irene was many things - a feminist, an internationalist, a writer and a teacher. Above all, she was an activist, who thought the point of her academic writing and her other work was to effect progressive change. We hope to establish a fund to commemorate her work and will let you know as soon as this has been agreed.

Our thoughts are with Richard and the children, Martin, David, Dan & Jo and the other members of her family.

Messages of condolence should be sent to jfjfp@aol.com

Jews for Justice for Palestinians Executive (Sylvia Cohen, Arthur Goodman, Dan Judelson, Vivien Lichtenstein, Diana Neslen, Naomi Wayne)
P O Box 46081, London W9 2ZF
http://www.palestinecampaign.org/index7b.asp?m_id=1&l1_id=2&l2_id=14&Content_ID=240

Afraid of setting precedent, IDF delays letting woman visit father's grave

There are those, admittedy fewer in number today, who believe that a Jewish State is compatible with Israel being a state of all its citizens. Below is an article which shows that the disgusting racism of Zionism even extends as far as preventing a Palestinian woman visiting her father's grave because it is in a closed military zone (one of the ways Palestinian land was confiscated was to call it a closed military area, keep it that way for 2 years and then declare, under the Cultivation of Waste Lands Ordinance that as the land hadn't been tended it was now forfeit!.

Tony Greenstein

Haaretz 06/10/2008
By Jack KhouryA Kafr Kana woman's request to visit her father's grave, which is now inside a closed military facility, is being delayed because the defense establishment is worried about setting a precedent, Haaretz found in an inquiry.

In June, Haaretz published the story of Salwa Salam Qubati, 60, a welfare clerk at the Nazareth municipality.

Qubati has been trying for years to visit the grave of her father, who died while her mother was pregnant. He is buried in what was once the Christian cemetery of the village of Malul, adjacent to Nazareth, on whose ruins a military base was built. Qubati said she tried several times to obtain defense establishment permission to visit the grave, but never received a reply. When Haaretz inquired in June, Israel Defense Forces officials said this was the first time they were hearing of the case. As a result, Qubati was put in contact with the relevant military officials, but received no response.

After Haaretz queried the IDF Spokesman again several weeks ago, the Spokesman replied, "Salwa Salem Qubati's request is being handled with all due seriousness and professionalism by the relevant parties. Due to the complexity of the request, this process takes time. Immediately after a decision is reached in her case, the appellant will be notified, not via the media."

Meanwhile, Haaretz has learned that the IDF is recommending that Qubati's request be approved, but that the matter has been forwarded to the defense minister, who has yet to decide on the matter. Defense Ministry officials said the request has not been approved yet for fear of setting a precedent.

Qubati never met her father, Fares Salem, who worked as a railroad driver during the British Mandate and was killed in March 1948, when her mother was pregnant. Qubati was born that July, two weeks after her family and the rest of Malul's residents were evicted from the village by the IDF. Qubati's family, along with many of the other refugees, settled in the Nazareth region, hoping to return to their village within weeks. But the village was destroyed; only two churches and the Muslim cemetery remained.

The remnants of the Christian cemetery, where Qubati's father is buried, are inside what is now a closed military installation used by the Israel Air Force.

Against Islam, Even Jews and Nazis can be Friends

Unbelievable though it is, neo-Nazis and Zionists are once again finding increasingly common cause. This shocking article below shows how some elements among the Zionists are taking their anti-Islam/Arab politics to its logical conclusion. After all Muslims are demonised by Israel (having itself created Hamas) and they are equally demonised by Zionists.

As Ruth Smeed of the Board of Deputies of British Jews observed in the Guardian of Thursday 10th April 2008, ‘The BNP website is now one of the most Zionist on the web - it goes further than any of the mainstream parties in its support of Israel’.

Historically of course the Zionist movement has often worked with Nazis against the common foe e.g. the Gestapo/Hagannah agent Feivel Polkes (whose file to this day is kept closed in Israel). But the article below is particularly shocking because American neo-Nazis are a tiny current, and yet their particular bile and vitriol has proved attractive to certain Zionists who are also wedded to the concept of race and nation.

by Daniel Sieradski, September 29, 2008 Following the September 11th attacks on the United States, many members of the Jewish community, increasingly concerned with the threats (real and imagined) posed by radical Islam to the security of the United States and Israel took a sharp turn to the political right. Some switched party affiliations, declaring themselves "9/11 Republicans," and subsequently went on the offensive against their predominantly liberal and progressive coreligionists, whom they have accused (as Caroline Glick did in a Jerusalem Post op-ed last week) of placing concern for liberal issues, such as a woman's right to choose, over preserving the physical safety of their fellow Jews.

Shockingly, as this group, in the advancement of their security concerns and in their growing contempt for the Left, made increasingly strange bedfellows with those historically considered to be hostile towards Jewish interests (such as Evangelical Christians and free market capitalists), some Jews went even further, not only abandoning their commitments to traditional liberal Jewish values, but forming political alliances with outright antisemites.

In 2003, for example, an investigation by an European anti-racist group found that some Jews were collaborating with neo-Nazis in order to promote anti-Arab and anti-Muslim sentiment online. Their interactions included sharing "best practices" for sending anonymous threats to mosques and other Islamic institutions.

Likewise, in 2006 a small but vocal Jewish contingent joined — to the chagrin of many in attendance — the annual conference of the White Nationalist group The American Renaissance, seeking to make common cause against the enemy purportedly shared in Islam. The event quickly devolved into a heated battle between the Jews and antisemites present. Interestingly, the debate resulted ultimately in The American Renaissance's director, Jared Taylor, issuing a statement proclaiming that Jews were a welcome part of their community.
The latest manifestation of this unsettling phenomenon occurred last weekend in Köln, Germany, where several Jews attended an anti-Islam rally organized by the far-right political party Pro North-Rhine Westphalia (Pro NRW). The rally, ordered shut down by the city government at the eleventh hour, was brought to a halt by militant antifascist (Antifa) activists who tussled with the anti-Muslim protesters in the open streets.

Among the rally's Jewish participants, some allege to be the victims of physical attack. One, identifying himself only as "Aviel," submitted the following account to several right-wing Jewish blogs:
I was wearing my Kippah and readily indetifiable [sic] as a Jew; however, they screamed at me "Nazis Raus". One of them showed [sic] me backwards and a woman spit on me and called me a fascist pig. At this point I had had enough and put my head down and started to try and break through the barricade. I was pummeled in the head several times and then shoved to the ground were I was beaten and kicked with steel toe boots in plain sight of the police who did nothing. [...] I got up and stumbled away. I didn’t realize that I had a broken rib until later.

Aviel's account quickly led to several denouncements of the Antifa, and his anti-anti-fascist banner was subsequently raised by sympathetic Jewish bloggers, like Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs, who labeled the Antifa "Nazis," "useful idiots" and "the Brown Shirts of our time."

In their furious rush to denounce radical Islam and the radical Left together, these Jews have conveniently chosen to ignore that the rally was endorsed by the international White Power movement, that Pro NRW is connected to actual Nazis and Holocaust deniers, and that Antifa has an illustrious history of both saving Jews during the Holocaust and keeping Nazism and other forms of fascism at bay throughout Europe for the past 30 years.

As reported in Der Spiegel, Pro NRW hails from far-right anti-immigrant quarters and its approach to promoting xenophobia has become a model for extremist right-wing parties throughout Europe, including those outwardly hostile towards Jews, such as the Austrian Freedom Party, which is helmed by former Nazis like Anton Reinthaller and Friedrich Peter. Also of concern is the fact that Pro NRW receives considerable support from Günther Kissel, a German real estate developer and Holocaust denier, who has on occasion played host to historical revisionist David Irving. Even among vocal opponents of the "Islamisization of Europe," like German Jewish author and Holocaust survivor Ralph Giordano, Pro NRW is regarded as the "local variety of Nazism."

Conversely, Antifa, otherwise known as Antifascistisk Aktion, was founded in the 1920s by German communists to resist the rise of fascism in Europe. After the forced dissolution of the group by the Nazis in 1933, the Antifa moved underground, mobilizing resistance against the Nazis and providing, among other things, assistance to Jews fleeing Nazi persecution.

Having reconstituted themselves since the fall of Soviet Communism, in modern day Europe, the Antifa are the first line of defense against encroaching fascism, and most specifically against neo-Nazi hooligans that are known to prowl city streets and football matches looking for Jewish and non-white victims. As militant anti-fascists, Antifa activists routinely take to the streets to shut down neo-Nazi and anti-immigrant activities, trading fisticuffs when necessary to silence the promulgation of racial incitement.

Antifa activists have also been at the forefront of preserving historical memory, specifically regarding Germany's role in perpetrating the Holocaust. For example, in 2006, Antifa activists in Köln staged demonstrations and took other actions which forced the Deutsche Bahn railroad service to put an exhibit in the national railway museum commemorating Jewish children who had been deported to concentration camps along the German national rail lines. In the eastern town of Erfurt, Antifa activists took over the condemned factory of Topf & Sons, where the crematoriums for Auschwitz and Buchenwald were manufactured, turning the space into an anti-Nazi activist resource center and impromptu Holocaust museum.

Yet nonetheless, these activists whom should be regarded as heroes by the Jewish community have now found themselves the object of some Jews' wrath. That is because in the Antifa critique, the far-right's advancement of anti-Islamism is viewed, not as a cause to be championed, but rather as a modern parallel to classical antisemitism and thus as the first step towards reawakening the horrors of Nazism.

Unfortunately for many Jews, the lesson of the Holocaust — "Never Again" — applies only to the survival of the Jewish community: Never again shall we go like sheep to the slaughter. Kill or be killed. Survival by any means necessary. Whatever alliances, whatever moral compromises it takes. Thus we've born witness to decades of Jewish dissembling in defense of Israel's most egregious criminal acts. And now, growing ever more common, we are witnessing the phenomenon of Jews, out of fear of Islam, joining ranks with bona fide Nazis.

On the other hand, for many Europeans, and particularly the Antifa, whether in Germany or the UK, the lesson of the Holocaust — "Never Again" — applies to preventing the rise of fascism and the employment of racial discrimination as a political weapon (no matter whom that discrimination is directed against). In the context of Antifa's historical memory, Pro NRW's anti-Muslim incitements are a precursor to far worse horrors. If the disruption of that fate requires physical intervention, so be it.

Should a Jew cast his lot with Nazis, frankly, marching in support of their cause, and thus find himself the target of anti-fascist resistance, the Antifa should be forgiven for mistaking him for one of "them." A Jew should know better and deserves to have his ass handed to him.

That other Jews should then allow themselves to be used to denounce the Antifa by the same cretins from which the Antifa has sought to protect us for decades bespeaks only our sad state of affairs, and how low Jewish moral consciousness has sank in the advent of our affluence and national aspirations.

The cooptation of "Never Again" as a war cry for those partaking in the demonization of "the other" betrays the memory of all those who perished in the Holocaust. Such a disgraceful inversion of history should not and cannot be tolerated.

Fancy That - David Toube Signs up to Return Statement!

There is no more avid supporter of the Zionist cause and opponent of Boycott than Engage supporter, David Toube. Solicitor David Taube works for Cleary Gottlieb, one of a number of law firms which service the shysters, crooks and other parasites that inhabit the City of London:
'He advises in relation to a broad range of investment banking, fund management, corporate finance and other financial services sector matters.'
Being someone dedicated to the truth, he always denied being an anti-Zionist but in fact he signed the original Return statement, supporting the right of Palestinian Return whilst opposing the Israeli Law of Return which applies only to Jews. Of course, like most of his ilk, he now supports Zionism and Israel, since support for imperialism and its offshoots is seen as beneficial to the class of ruling class hangers-on to which he belongs.

Toube is a particularly nasty character, specialising in defaming anyone who is anti-Zionist. In particular Sheffield College lecturer Jenna Delich, who inadvertently posted a link to ne-Nazi and ex-KKK activist David Duke. She apologised for her mistake but that was the cue for Toube to accuse her of being a Duke fan. He is one of a regular band of defamers, including Atzmon supporter and 'researcher' Mike Ezra, who post on Engage.

Tony Greenstein

'Hundreds join' settler violence - BBC Reports the Truth - For Once

A settler attack on a West Bank village in September left a trail of damage

Its not often that a BBC Report on the West Bank focuses on violence against Palestinians rather than the retaliation of the Palestinians, we should savour it. Of course being able to quote the Israeli military made it kosher since the BBC itself never bothers to send its reporters to search out stories for itself.

Hundreds of settlers are engaged in violence against Palestinians and Israeli soldiers, the senior Israeli commander in the West Bank has said.

Majr-Gen Gadi Shamni said diverting military resources to deal with settlers impaired the army's ability to carry out operations against militants. A recent UN report recorded 222 acts of settler violence in the first half of 2008 compared with 291 in all of 2007.

Palestinians have long complained of settler harassment and intimidation.
They have also complained the Israeli military does little to stop or restrain the settlers.

'Significant change'

"In the past, only a few dozen individuals took part in such activity but today that number has grown into the hundreds. That's a very significant change," Maj-Gen Shamni told the Israeli Haaretz newspaper.

"These hundreds are engaged in conspiratorial actions against Palestinians and the security forces. It's a very grave phenomenon."
"This is harming our ability to carry out security missions in the territories. We have to divert our efforts to there from other issues.
"The margins [in the settler community] are expanding, because they are enjoying a tailwind and the backing of part of the leadership, both rabbinical and public, whether in explicit statements or tacitly."

The general said that in some cases Israeli soldiers who had intervened to stop settlers from attacking Palestinians had themselves been attacked by settlers.

"The majority [of settlers] here act normally. We're talking about a hard core of a few hundred activists," Maj-Gen Shamni said.

'Wind of extremism'

Israeli political leaders have made comments along similar lines recently.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has spoken of an "evil wind of extremism" threatening Israel's democracy.

This was in reaction to a pipe bomb attack on a leading Israeli academic and critic of the occupation of Palestinian land by presumed hard-line right-wingers.

Mr Olmert has also described a mass attack by settlers on the West Bank village of Asira al-Qabiliya as a "pogrom".

Settlers have said the attack was in response to the wounding of a nine-year-old boy by a Palestinian who had been trying to set fire to an empty house in the near-by Yitzhar settlement.
Defence Minister Ehud Barak has urged tougher penalties for settlers who attack Palestinian property.

About 500,000 Jewish settlers live in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, among a population of about 2.5 million Palestinians.

All settlements are consider illegal under international law, though Israel disputes this.

See also: West Bank violence breeds hatred