I am not an historian, decent author or a journalist, and the chances are that unless there is a link or reference to somewhere else, the perpetrator is yours truly – Renaud Sarda. I created this blog as a focal point, to arm people with arguments and facts that they can perhaps use to counter biased media reporting and anti-Israel propaganda, and to help counter (BDS) campaign. I am a Zionist/Sephardi/Jew who will fly the Israeli flag, and defend whatever Israel does.
“To many Israelis, the allegations about water are one step removed from blood libel. Water is a sensitive issue and is deeply symbolic, especially in the Middle East. […]
Had Martin Schulz [the president of the European Union Parliament, addressing the Israeli Knesset] checked the facts, and wanted to bring up this issue in a serious and constructive manner, he could have said: ‘There is a difference in water usage between Israelis and Palestinians of about 2:1. I am aware that part of this is due to different levels of economic development, that a share of it is due to mismanagement by the Palestinian Authority of the water systems, and another due to the agreements signed between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. However, I think that given the important symbolism and sensitivity of water in this region, and the technological advancement of desalination and water re-usage, in which Israel is a world leader, Israel could and should go above and beyond the official agreements it signed with the Palestinian Authority, even more than it already does now, to provide Palestinians with more water.’
Such a paragraph in the speech would not have raised such criticism, but is also would not have created such intense media coverage. Could this be the real reason that Schulz preferred to not check his facts? Could it be that he knew that provocative allegations would create a greater stir than level-headed analysis that highlights the complexity of the situation? For many Israelis, Schulz’ act in the Knesset represents a dangerous and slippery slope, where even those who support Israel are willing to believe the worst about it, and lend their credibility to voicing problematic allegations against it.
The Jewish people are keenly aware that mass acts of physical cruelty towards other human beings are preceded by laying an ideological groundwork. They fear that this is what is taking place in the world today with respect to Israel and Zionism. In this war of ideas […] that is being waged against Israel and Zionism, lies, provocative allegations, stereotypes, misrepresentations, and false interpretations are employed as weapons. The purpose of this war, like all previous ones, is to roll back the great achievement of Zionism – the establishment of a sovereign state for the Jewish people in their ancient homeland. The strategy of this war is to associate Israel and Zionism with all that is evil in our world, so that one day the physical the destruction of the modern state of Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people will not seem like a great loss, and maybe even be a blessing.”
Einat Wilf, Fact Checking in the Knesset (English original of an op-ed published in German in theSüddeutsche Zeitung, February 18, 2014).
I have previously written about the water libel, explaining that I used this term because current accusations against Israel on various water-related issues echo the medieval accusations that Jews were poisoning wells.
Cartoonist says he’s shocked anyone misread his caricature of Facebook’s CEO
By Daniel Zylbersztajn — Feb 24, 2014
On Friday, the Süddeutsche Zeitung—one of Germany’s most serious and widely-read broadsheet dailies—published a cartoon about Facebook’s newly-announced acquisition of WhatsApp, the text-messaging service. Titled “Krake Facebook”—Facebook Octopus—it featured a many-armed creature reaching its tentacles into computers and servers, grasping the WhatsApp icon.
It had a human face, which belonged to Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook CEO. The problem was that the face was drawn in the style of the worst anti-Semitic caricatures: Adorned with a greedy fish-lipped mouth and a long hooked nose under a hat emblazoned with Facebook’s logo and a fringe of Zuckerbergian curls. Had it appeared 70 years ago its intention would have been deadly clear: The "eternal Jew," that ugly creature Germans tried to exterminate, had entered cyberspace.
You could argue it was all the spirit of the current German carnival season, in which Germans dress up in costume and make a game of social satire, but many observers thought it was more sinister than that. First in line with an accusatory public critique were the professionals of Germany's premier satirical magazineTitanic, with a speedy "Sunday special"condemning the drawing by paralleling it clearly with Hitler's thinking.
The Süddeutsche promptly apologized—on Twitter, naturally, in the form of a simple Twitter message, declaring “We are sorry!” But the fire continued, fueled by the fact that it wasn't the first time the SZ has been at the receiving end of recently public disapproval for a caricature that related negatively to the wider Jewish theme: Less than a year ago, in July 2013, the newspaper published a drawing by Ernst Kahl showing a hungry Gruffalo-like monster, a true Moloch, being served by a waitress with a full plate, with the subtitle: “Germany serves!” The picture was supposed to illustrate “nearly free servings of German arms” to the insatiable monster that is the State of Israel. The outrage was great. The president of the Association of German Jews, Dieter Gauman, responded that the cartoon was on the level of Stürmer, the infamous Third Reich magazine that frequently depicted Jews as world ruling monsters. “I am most surprised that anti-Semitic associations are so superficially permitted to happen, given the seriousness of this paper otherwise,” he wrote.
Now the Süddeutsche Zeitung has released a statement by Burkhard Mohr, the man responsible for the drawing, who updated it to replace Zuckberg’s face with a blank rectangular hole. He insists he is rather baffled and surprised and in his own words “shattered,” because he is apparently totally unacquainted with the ideologies of anti-Semitism and racism and their history in popular art. “Trying to combine a satirical take on Zuckerberg in combination with the movie Pirates of the Caribbean, I failed to realize that it looked like an anti-Jewish hate drawing,“ he wrote. He added, “I am deeply sorry that it caused such misunderstanding and possible injury to the feelings of parts of the paper’s readers.”
Daniel Zylbersztajn is a German-Jewish journalist based in London who writes for several German newspapers. His Twitter feed is @Zylbersztajn.
Olive farming in the settlement of Shiloh. / Photo by Moti Milrod
There are no official figures, but probably thousands of Israeli consumers check the labels before they buy.
By Judy Maltz
Published 15:25 24.02.14
Long before Scarlett Johansson came under international fire for promoting the West BankSodaStream factory, these Israelis were getting their seltzer elsewhere.
And long before world Jewish leaders pronounced the international boycott movement anti-Semitism in its latest manifestation , these Israelis steered clear of products sold by Jewish-owned businesses located beyond the country’s internationally recognized borders.
Palestinian farmers at a field near the West Bank Jordan valley settlement of Tomer, Jan. 9, 2014. An international campaign to ... / Photo by AP
It’s hard to know their exact numbers, but they are boycotters too, many for as long as they can remember: These Israelis do not, as a matter of principle, buy goods or produce from Jewish settlements in the occupied territories.
Vardit Shalfy, a theater director from Tel Aviv, not only checks every label carefully when she does her own supermarket shopping, but she also makes a point of alerting other customers who might not be aware that what they’re throwing into their carts was made in contested territory. “I’m absolutely shameless about it,” she acknowledges, “and very often, I get people to return products to the shelves. They simply didn’t know until I told them that what they were about to buy was made in the settlements and that by buying it they are supporting the occupation. Once, a woman almost smacked me, but more often than not, people listen.”
If she’s invited to an event where food is being served, says Shalfy, she has no qualms about calling over the chef to ascertain where exactly the ingredients in each dish came from. At the home of an acquaintance, she recounts, she once noticed her daughter innocently take a bite out of a cookie made by a factory in the East Jerusalem industrial park of Atarot. “I pulled it out of her mouth and reminded her that we don’t eat such things,” she says.
Netta Hazan, a facilitator for interfaith groups who lives in Jerusalem, admits she doesn’t take things that far. “I’m not going to lie and say that I check every label, and it’s not that I never drank something made with SodaStream, but if I know something’s made in a Jewish settlement, I won’t buy it,” she says. “On the other hand, I do make a point of buying things in Bethlehem in order to support the Palestinian economy.”
In 2006, Gush Shalom, the peace activist group headed by Uri Avnery, published a list of several hundred products made in areas beyond the Green Line. The list, comprised of many food products, also includes businesses operating in the Golan Heights. Among the best-known names on the list, aside from SodaStream, are the Ahava skin-care products manufacturer and the Golan Wineries.
In July 2011 the Knesset passed the so-called “anti-boycott law,” which penalizes persons or organizations who call for a boycott of Israel or the settlements. A group of human rights and minority rights organizations, including Gush Shalom, petitioned the High Court of Justice saying it was unconstitutional, and a first hearing in the case was held last week.
After the law was passed, Gush Shalom, concerned that it might be sued for heavy damages under the law, removed the list from its website. But that same list is being hosted today on the website of the Israeli social-democratic movement.
Adam Keller, the spokesman of Gush Shalom, estimates that “tens of thousands” of Israelis who oppose the occupation boycott products from the settlements. “I’m basing that on the number of people who downloaded the list from our site when it was still up and the number who’ve signed up to receive our pamphlets,” he says. Two prominent cases of Israeli companies that moved their factories “back home,” as he puts it, in response to pressure from the boycotters are the Barkan wine producer and the Bagel Bagel pretzel maker.
Although Gush Shalom wholeheartedly supports the boycott of products made in the settlements, Keller notes, it does not support the BDS movement and its call to boycott Israel as a whole. The organization’s boycott initiative, he says, was prompted by a desire to make the public aware that being a peace activist is not only about attending demonstrations. “You can also help promote peace through your consumer decisions.”
After the anti-boycott law was passed, Israeli left-wing organizations that support a boycott of settlement products were certain they’d be sued left and right, says Keller. But it never happened. “To date, there has not even been one lawsuit filed,” he notes.
Longtime peace activist Naftali Raz, who heads the social-democratic movement Massad, believes the other side feared testing the constitutionality of the law. “My speculation is that they went to lawyers who told them they would be idiots to bring this to court,” he says.
Asked why not one suit was brought against those calling for a boycott of their businesses, Yigal Dilmoni, deputy director of the Yesha Council, the organization that advocates on behalf of the settlements, said: “The leftist organizations sitting in Tel Aviv have lots of money and time on their hands, and we do not.”
In response to the anti-boycott law, Raz organized a petition in July 2011 that was signed by several hundred prominent Israelis, among them former heads of the security services, former cabinet ministers, professors, scientists, artists and writers. In the petition, the signatories declared their support for boycotting products from the settlements and said they would be willing to sit in jail rather than pay any fines, should they be found guilty of violating the law through their endorsement.
Raz puts the number of Israelis who boycott products from the settlements at “many thousands.”
In the past few years, Gush Shalom and the social democratic movement have been joined by several Hebrew-language Facebook groups that support boycotting products from the settlements, the most popular being “Sue me, I boycott settlement products,” which had almost 8,500 followers at the last count.
As Keller notes, it’s not always simple to ascertain where a product has been made and now that supermarkets in Europe have begun to mark merchandise made in the settlements, many business have an incentive to cover their tracks. For some, it’s a simple as setting up an address or office inside the Green Line. SodaStream’s corporate headquarters, for example, are located right near Ben-Gurion International Airport.
“We put a lot of detective work into putting together our list,” he says. “We used to have a full-time employee who did all the research for us, but we can’t afford it anymore so it’s all based on volunteers. One of the tell-tale signs we’ve discovered with food products is the address of the Rabbinate providing the Kashrut certificate. If it’s an address in the territories, that’s a good indication to us that the product is also being made in the territories.”
Another problem, he notes, arises from “the overlap between those who oppose the occupation and those who are ethical about what they eat,” because many of the organic and free-range products found in Israeli supermarkets and specialty stores come from the settlements.
Roy Yellin, a media consultant based in Tel Aviv, says that just as he wouldn’t purchase products manufactured by child laborers or those harmful to the environment, he doesn’t purchase products made in the settlements. “As someone who lives in this country, I’m forced to contribute to the settlement enterprise through the taxes I pay which support the economy there,” he says. “So at least in this way, through the decisions I make about what I consume, I can refrain from making any further contributions.”
After Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders called the international boycott movement anti-Semitism, says Yellin, “I felt it was really important for people to know that there are people in Israel who support the boycott, and that it doesn’t mean that they’re anti-Semites but rather that they oppose the continued occupation.”
Tamar Zandberg, a Knesset member from the left-wing Meretz party, says her refusal to buy products from the settlements is “my own personal way of showing my deep opposition to the government policy that established the settlements and my refusal to be part of it.”
The recent “hysterical denouncements” of boycott supporters by Israeli government leaders, she says, “is like saying that the mirror is crooked when it’s your face that’s ugly.”
Asked to comment on those Israelis who boycott settlement products, Dilmoni said: “Those who embrace boycotts are those who have failed in every other way to get their political message across. Whoever supports a boycott against the settlements shouldn’t be surprised if ultimately the boycott targets them.”
He said the boycott did not have a “significant” effect on businesses in the settlements. “For every factory that moved out, others have come in their place,” he said.
JERUSALEM (JTA) — The Jewish Agency said it would offer immediate emergency assistance to the Jewish community of coup-ravaged Ukraine and help secure its institutions.
Jewish Agency Chairman Natan Sharansky’s announcement on Saturday came hours after protests in the former Soviet republic forced President Viktor Yanukovych to flee Kiev and the parliament announced new presidential elections for late May. Dozens died in violent demonstrations leading to the coup.
Some 200,000 Jews live in Ukraine, mostly in the capital of Kiev, according to the Jewish Agency.
The Jewish Agency will help Ukraine through its Emergency Assistance Fund for Jewish Communities, which enables Jewish communities at risk to strengthen security measures.
Sharansky said in a statement that Ukraine is “one of the most vibrant Jewish communities in the world, with dozens of active Jewish organizations and institutions. Recent events have shown that we must strengthen these institutions’ security measures. We have a moral responsibility to ensure the safety and security of Ukraine’s Jews.”
He told Jewish Agency leaders on Saturday night that the organization is in “constant contact” with the Jewish leadership in Ukraine and is following events there closely.
Rabbi Moshe Reuven Azman, a Chabad rabbi in Ukraine, told Maariv that he advised his congregation to leave Kiev and the country, if possible. Azman closed the Jewish community’s schools in the capital due to the violence, the Israeli daily reported.
Azman also told the newspaper that the Israeli Embassy advised the members of the Jewish community to remain in their homes.
Chelsea Handler on TLC's Who Do You Think You Are. (photo credit: screen capture/TLC)
Chelsea Handler confronts dark family history as she undergoes a televised journey of self-discovery
American Jewish comedienne Chelsea Handler realized her family history was no laughing matter last week as she underwent a journey of self-discovery in an episode of TLC’s Who Do You Think You Are, which was aired Tuesday.
In the episode, Handler, who was raised Jewish by her Jewish mother and non-Jewish father, confronted the dark secret her “very, very big, strong” German grandfather, Karl Stoecker, had avoided discussing for years — his Nazi past and role in the Holocaust.
“My German grandma definitely spoke about her life during the war way more than my grandfather did,” said Handler. “He never spoke about it.”
The 38-year-old comedienne discovered during the episode that before immigrating to the United States, her grandfather had been interred in a POW camp for years, probably in Montana. Prior to that, discovered Handler, he’d served as a Nazi soldier in Hitler’s army during World War II.
“When he went back to Germany, he was very eager to come and take his family and move them back to the United States,” said Handler.
Handler, who was raised in New Jersey, became emotional and broke down during the episode as she struggled to reconcile her Jewish upbringing to her grandfather’s Nazi past.
“My grandfather served in the Second World War as a soldier. Whether or not he agreed with Hitler, he was serving in the Germany army,” she said.
“My father, I guess, made a deal with my mother when they had children that they were gonna be raised Jewish. So I connect with my Judaism, or the Jewish side of my family, more than anything else.”
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Pourquoi c'est important
"Pourquoi c’est important ? Depuis la pseudo-indépendance de l’Algérie, la Kabylie n'a cessé de revendiquer ses libertés et ses droits, faisant même passer l’intérêt " national" devant son identité, une erreur regrettable pour le peuple kabyle. Le racisme, la xénophobie, et le négationniste Etatique…Cliquez ici pour voir le texte dans son intégralité
