Belgium: Doctor refuses to help 90-year-old woman because she is Jewish — “Go to Gaza”

When and how will this pandemic of anti-Semitism end? The last time it was this bad in Europe, it ended in mass murder. Today the “Palestinians,” the darlings of the international media and “human rights community,” call openly for a new genocide of the Jews, and nonetheless never lose favor with the intelligentsia and elites. The moral myopia is as pandemic as the Jew-hatred, and growing. Whether this doctor is a Leftist or a Muslim (or both), he should be stripped of his license to practice medicine. But probably he will get away with a perfunctory reprimand.

“Doctor refuses to help 90-year-old woman because she is Jewish – ‘go to Gaza,’” translation of “Arts weigert 90-jarige vrouw te helpen omdat ze Joods is – ‘ga maar naar Gaza,” Joods Actuel, July 31, 2014 (thanks to Rudi):

A Flemish doctor Wednesday night on the telephone manned as a duty of physicians refused to provide medical help to a 90-year-old Jewish woman who had suffered a rib fracture. “I will not come! Send her to Gaza for a few hours, then she will not feel pain anymore,” was the reply. The doctor said shortly after the story became known that this was done in an “emotional frenzy.” The Health Department is investigating the matter.

It was the son of the 90-year-old Bertha Klein who yesterday evening around 11 pm phoned the doctors’ help line. His mother was in agonizing pain after she had suffered a rib fracture. The doctor discovered very quickly that it was a Jewish patient: her name and Antwerp address betrayed all that, as well as the accent (Klein is American).

When the family asked if the doctor could come to the aid of this woman in terrible pain, he replied bluntly, “I will not come,” and put the phone down. The family called back immediately; then the doctor said, “Send her to the Gaza Strip for several hours, she will not feel pain anymore then.”

The family was in shock and meanwhile phoned a friend, Samuel Markowitz, district councilor in Antwerp for the Open VLD. Markowitz also knew that a physician should never refuse a patient. He himself called the help line and confronted the doctor with his statements (the interview was also recorded for later proof).

The doctor admitted the facts and said that this was in “a fit of emotion.” Markowitz explained all this to the the head of the Department of Health for the Antwerp region, while the grandson of the 90-year-old woman, Hershy Taffel, registered a complaint with the police for racism and xenophobia.

Mr. Taffel tells how his grandmother burst into tears. “This reminds me of what we underwent in Europe 70 years ago, I never thought that day would ever be repeated.”

IMPORT OF CONFLICT

Michael Freilich, editor of Jewish News, is concerned about the import of the Middle East conflict to our country.

“This is yet another incident in succession in a short period of time. A shop in Antwerp refused a woman to serve because she was Jewish, a cafe in Liege has a sign hung with the message ‘Dogs are welcome, Jews are not,’ and in Brussels slogans like ‘Death to the Jews’ were chanted during a demonstration. And on Facebook, we see calls every day of hatred against the Jewish people.

“And let me repeat for the umpteenth time: Belgian Jews are NOT Israelis! They merely have an emotional bond with that country but have no influence on the conflict. They do not vote in Israel, do not go to the army and pay no taxes there.

“Any form of racism and anti-Semitism must be condemned by politicians vigorously. High Time, methinks.”

US HAS STOPPED ISSUING VISAS TO ISRAELIS, EXCEPT IN EMERGENCIES

Move is due to staff reductions at the embassy in light of the security situation. The US embassy in Tel Aviv is not issuing travel visas to Israelis until further notice except in emergency cases.

In a statement, the embassy said it is only issuing urgent visas, and applicants can email the embassy to see if their circumstances fit that definition. The cause of the delay is that the embassy has reduced its staff due to the security situation, and there are not enough employees to conduct the personal interview stage of the process.

The reduction is staff is a precaution during wartime, to reduce the number of those affected in case of a direct attack.

Even in emergency cases, the embassy said issuing a visa could take two to three days at least.

In a related development, there are reports that residents of countries like Ireland and China are having trouble getting travel visas to the US because of a problem with the US Immigration Authority`s database. Some observers have speculated that the problem resulted from an attack by hackers.

A week ago, the US State Department issued a travel warning to US citizens against travelling to Israel and the West Bank. Most other countries that issued travel warnings, including Japan and Australia, merely warned their citizens not to visit within 40 km of the border with Gaza, as well as not to visit Gaza City itself.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry has also issued a travel warning to Israelis who wish to visit Turkey, due to the tense atmosphere there since the beginning of Operation Protective Edge.

Media is biased against Israel

EDGE EDITORIAL – Almost 2000 killed in just 10 days. No, not a statement regarding the current conflict in Gaza but the latest statistic to emerge from Syria, a country whose bloody civil war has raged for more than three years. Two thousand in just 10 days. And the world barely flickers an eyelid. But why would it when it can focus on its favourite bete noire, the State of Israel? Focus, though, is perhaps the wrong word. Because for those of us who seek objectivity and balance in reporting on the Jewish State, reading Mike Carlton’s Fairfax column on Saturday or watching Allison Langdon’s 60 Minutes report on Sunday, showed just how out of focus and blurred our media’s coverage of Operation Protective Edge can become. Little wonder that in the hours that followed publication of the former and broadcast of the latter, Facebook feeds were filled with furious posts from members of the community countering the claims made, seeking to set the record straight, placing the conflict in context and introducing basic facts that seem to have been overlooked by the respective journalists in favour of regurgitating the all-too-familiar and all-too-easy “Israel is the all-powerful, immoral aggressor” line. To highlight their case, the pundits posit what is widely portrayed as the IDF’s disproportionate response to the meagre rockets fired by Hamas. Ironically, in so doing they ignore the media’s disproportionate focus on Israel – remember the almost 2000 Syrians killed in just 10 days – and their own disproportionate allocation of blame on Israel. Did either Langdon or Carlton mention Hamas’s stated commitment to the destruction of Israel, the terrorist atrocities and rocket attacks that predate this current conflict and have precipitated every conflict in recent years including this one? Did they mention the 2005 disengagement from Gaza and various proposals of a West Bank withdrawal that could and should have laid the foundations for a two-state solution – if that is what the Palestinian leadership genuinely wanted? Did they mention Israel’s documented attempts to minimise civilian casualties as opposed to Hamas’s documented use of human shields? The answer is a simple no. But it is pretty much what we’ve come to expect. For its part, 60 Minutes was textbook, Israel-baiting by numbers. Chapter one: Having interviewed members of a Palestinian family who’ve suffered at the hands of Israeli aggression, why interview an Israeli family that’s suffered from Palestinian terrorism for balance, when instead you can interview a couple of right-wing settlers with extremist views to show how bigoted Israelis are? For good measure, throw in another Israeli interviewee – a left-winger – who’ll confirm that the system is rotten to the core. One final note, don’t even consider interviewing a Palestinian who calls for Israel’s destruction, because then it might seem the country actually has something to worry about … and that the ones we’re depicting as oppressed aren’t quite the innocents we want them to appear. As for Carlton’s column, that was altogether more insidious. Not only were we treated to baseless accusations of “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing” on Israel’s part, but then there was a subtle shift. These were crimes being committed by “a people with a proud liberal tradition of scholarship and culture, who hold the Warsaw Ghetto and the six million dead of the Holocaust at the centre of their race memory”. This column was no longer about a country, this was about a people and a race – a people and a race who should know better because of what they themselves went through. In short, you Jews are the same as the Nazis, worse perhaps because you choose to ignore the lessons of your own history. How low can a columnist in a mainstream newspaper sink? How low can a mainstream newspaper sink? And then, to illustrate the point, a cartoon featuring a big-nosed, bespectacled Jew, the kind that would have featured in Der Sturmer, wearing a kippah and with a Star of David scrawled on the back of his armchair – just in case it wasn’t quite clear he was Jewish – pressing a remote control that detonates an explosion in Gaza. Two weeks ago, a Jewish man was beaten up in Melbourne, last weekend a Jewish school in Perth had the words “Zionist scum” daubed on the wall. Across Europe, synagogues have been attacked, Jewish-owned shops have been vandalised and pro-Palestinian rallies have echoed to chants of “Gas the Jews”. And how does our own media respond? First, by fuelling the fire of anti-Israel sentiment through unbalanced and misleading reporting, and second, by fanning the flames of anti-Semitism – flames whose heat we are already lamentably feeling on these shores. In these troubled times, it behoves our media to act both responsibly and with integrity, not to stir the pot. Shame on 60 Minutes. Even greater shame on Fairfax. If you haven’t done so already, consider cancelling your Fairfax subscriptions today. AJN STAFF A screen grab from the 60 Minutes report. RELATED POSTS ‘Zionist scum’ daubed on Perth Jewish school JULY 31, 2014 · NO COMMENTS VANDALS struck at Perth’s Carmel School early last Friday morning, daubing a message of hatred on a wall. When staff and SMH slammed over ‘anti-Semitic’ cartoon JULY 31, 2014 · NO COMMENTS THE Sydney Morning Herald could face legal action after widespread community outrage at a “clearly anti-Semitic” cartoon that could lead Variety of festival films JULY 30, 2014 · NO COMMENTS THIS year’s Melbourne International Film Festival gets underway on Thursday, July 31 with the Australian premiere of the Spierig Brothers’ Rockets found in UNRWA school for a third time JULY 30, 2014 · NO COMMENTS A stockpile of Hamas rockets was found on Wednesday (Australian time) in a school in the Gaza Strip. It is Rocket barrage continues towards Beersheba and Tel Aviv JULY 30, 2014 · NO COMMENTS Rockets from Gaza were fired at various areas of Israel on Wednesday morning (Australian time) including in the Tel Aviv 

Media disgrace | The Australian Jewish News

German Jews Warned To 'Hide Your Jewishness'

"What we're witnessing is the most difficult and most threatening time since 1945"

Things are getting so dangerous for Jewish people living in Germany that the former president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Charlotte Knobloch, has advised her fellow German Jews to hide their Jewishness, saying, "The risk of being target of an attack is too large."

As reported by German newspaper Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger (and translated by Google), Knobloch gave her warning after the fire-bombing of the synagogue in Wuppertal ​(and covered by TruthRevolt) and previous anti-Semitic incidents.

Knoblauch, who is now the president of the Jewish Community of Munich and Upper Bavaria, said: "What we're witnessing is the most difficult and most threatening time since 1945.  There are constant insults and hate slogans by phone, but also via e-mail. The mailboxes flows." 

She added that Jew-hatred is back in Germany and it must never be accepted: "I could never have imagined that we would have to experience such a thing in Germany again. Unrestrained, the Jew-baiting in our country has reached a new level. And it's time for all those responsible to ask: 'What must we do to protect Jewish citizens?'" 

Knobloch also spoke about the lack of support for German Jews from her non-Jewish neighbors: "I do not hear the cry: 'That's it!' We long for a broad front of resistance against this Jew-baiting. But the masses are silent. He who is silent now, affirms what happens."

 

Hatred of Jews is fuelling protests across the Western world

A huge plume of smoke rises following an Israeli military strike on the outskirts of Gaza City. Picture: AFP

A PUTRID Jew-hatred has returned to the West, fed by mass immigration and stoked by the Left.

Do not mistake this anti-Semitism for mere anger at Israel over the war in Gaza. That war is just the calculated pretext for a month of menace that has terrified many Jews — as well as those of us who prize civilisation over barbaric tribalism.

BLOG WITH ANDREW BOLT

France now has more than six million Muslims and two weeks ago Arab protesters — some chanting “death to Jews” — attacked synagogues, torched cars and burned Jewish shops in Sarcelles, a suburb of Paris dubbed “Little Jerusalem”.

Germany now has four million Muslims. Arab and Turkish protesters were this month filmed shouting “Gas the Jews” and other Jew-hating slogans and a Berlin imam, Sheik Abu Bilal Ismail, was filmed at his mosque preaching: “Oh Allah, destroy the Zionist Jews ... Count them and kill them to the very last one. Don’t spare a single one of them.”

The Netherlands has almost one million Muslims and protesters in The Hague this month chanted “Death to the Jews” in Arabic, while some waved the black flags of the Islamic State terrorist group. The home of Holland’s chief rabbi was pelted with rocks.

Belgium has 700,000 Muslims and in Liège this month a Turkish shop showed a sign that read: “Dogs are allowed in this establishment, but Jews are not under any circumstances.” Two months ago four Jews were shot dead at the Jewish Museum in Brussels, allegedly by a French Muslim.

Austria has 500,000 Muslims, and this month Arab protesters invaded a soccer game involving an Israeli team, kicking players and waving Palestinian flags.

Even in Sydney this month, Greens senator Lee Rhiannon told an anti-Israel crowd that Israel was guilty of “war crimes”, while protesters waved the black flags of jihad and the yellow flags of the Hezbollah terrorist group.

A Jewish ABC reporter covering the protest was abused by a man of Middle Eastern appearance shouting: “Shame on you! Ya Jewish! You are Jewish! Shame on you!”

Meanwhile, Greens MPs back boycotts of businesses with links to Israel and the Sydney Morning Herald last weekend printed a cartoon of a hook-nosed Jew on a couch gleefully using his remote to bomb Gaza, above a column claiming Jews should have been taught a lesson by the Holocaust against committing “these atrocities”.

But, like I said, this is not really about Gaza, where Israel is fighting Hamas terrorists who have fired thousands of rockets at Israeli civilians in the past two months — and keep firing even during ceasefires.

Yes, these pictures of dead Palestinian children are horrifying. They are meant to be, which is why Hamas shoots from among its civilians and orders them to ignore Israeli warnings to move clear of targets.

That is also why the United Nations has found missiles hidden in at least three schools it runs in Gaza and why Hamas so pointlessly launches them at Israeli cities — to provoke Israel into exactly this self-defence against an enemy whose stated aim is to destroy it.

Then when Israel does shoot back, cue protests and riots around the world to exhaust the West’s willingness to defend not just Israel but Jews generally.

Don’t tell me these protests are about Israel’s “blockade” of Gaza, which actually has a border with Egypt porous enough to let Hamas smuggle in thousands of rockets.

Don’t tell me they’re about Israel’s “occupation” when Israel does not occupy an inch of Gaza.

And especially don’t tell me these protests are about Israel’s “war crimes” or “murders”.

No, if these protests are really against killing Muslims — and not against Jews — then where are the protests over the 2000 Syrians killed by other Muslims in the past two weeks?

If these protests are really against barbarism, then where is the outrage over the Muslims who this month had their heads hacked off by Islamic State militants in Syria’s Raqqa and impaled on a fence? If these protests are against crimes against children, then where are the marches against the Boko Haram terrorists who cut the throats of schoolboys and enslaved nearly 300 schoolgirls in April?

If these protests are about alleged “apartheid” policies, then where are the petitions denouncing the Islamic State for destroying Mosul’s ancient Christian community this month by demanding Christians convert, flee or die? And where are the protests against Muslims slaughtering Muslims in Pakistan, Libya, Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq, where 5500 civilians have been killed this year?

Or is killing a Muslim only an international outrage when a Jew does it in self-defence?

Is the only good Jew one who let himself be killed?

Exodus II: persecuted Jews are fleeing Europe

You're not hearing much about this. The media focus at the moment is on the evil Zionist Jews and the Gaza holocaust, Labour's 'death tax', Tulisa's emotional trauma, and Ebola - the latest pandemic of fear and terror of the earth.

But in the latest International Religious Freedom Report issued by the US Department of State, tucked away amidst the horrors being perpetrated in Burma, China, Eritrea, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, we find this: 

Throughout Europe, the historical stain of anti-Semitism continued to be a fact of life on Internet fora, in soccer stadiums, and through Nazi-like salutes, leading many individuals who are Jewish to conceal their religious identity.

..Rising anti-Semitism and anti-Muslim sentiment in parts of Europe demonstrated that intolerance is not limited to countries in active conflict. The European Union’s Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA) survey of perceptions of anti-Semitism among Jews in eight member states (Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Sweden and United Kingdom), released in November, found that in some countries as many as 48 percent of the local Jewish population had considered emigrating because of anti-Semitism.

Incredibly, almost half of the Jewish populations in some European countries are so fearful, intimidated and oppressed that they are considering leaving their homes, families and communities and emigrating to a foreign land. Cries of "Death to the Jews" are heard ringing across Europe's towns and cities, as the spectre of Nazi ghettos descends once again. "They pursue the Jews in the streets of Berlin… as if we were in 1938," says Israel's Ambassador to Germany, Yakov Hadas-Handelsman. He has also heard chants of "Jewish pigs" and "Gas the Jews". "Since March 2012, I am ambassador of Israel in Germany," he said. "If someone had told me that I witnessed such hateful, incites hatred and anti-Semitic phenomena would be in public in this country, I would not probably have thought it possible."

Jews are being advised not to go out onto the streets wearing a kippah. In Toulouse, Jewish children are shot in a Jewish school. In Brussels, people are randomly killed in a Jewish museum: if they happen to be Jews or Israelis, all the better. In Liege, a café displayed a sign in its window which said dogs were welcome, but Jews were not allowed to enter.

This is Christian Europe, which, of all the continents of the world, ought to feel the deepest shame that Jewish cemeteries are being desecrated, Jewish-owned businesses raided, synagogues vandalised and worshippers abused and insulted. Jews are being attacked not because they are diehard supporters of Israel or the policies of Benjamin Netanyahu, but because they are Jews. And the oppressors - in case you didn't know - are thousands of Europe's young, male Muslims. But none dares say so.

To these young male Muslims, the Israeli occupation of Gaza is a certain grievance, but the Jewish occupations of Paris, London and Amsterdam also need sorting. To the media, they may be male; they may be Asian or "of Asian appearance". But no, they may not be called Muslim, for that would cause great offence. These extremists, as we are told, "do not follow any faith".

A survey published in November 2013 by the Fundamental Rights Agency of the European Union observed that Jews across Europe “face insults, discrimination and physical violence, which despite concerted efforts by both the EU and its member states, shows no signs of fading into the past”.

Two-thirds considered anti-Semitism to be a problem across the countries surveyed. Overall, 76% of respondents said that anti-Semitism had worsened over the past five years. 

It is curious, is it not, that we hear so much about the latent anti-Muslim 'racism' inherent in any criticism of Islam or the Qur'an. No matter how reasoned and intelligent the observations may be, they are perceptibly 'Islamophobic' and so 'bigoted' and 'racist'. But it is not permissible to talk about the blatant anti-Semitism inherent in the demonisation and delegitimisation of Israel. The only enlightened discourse is pathologically pro-Palestine and so pro-Hamas.

Of course, it is not anti-Semitic to criticise Israel or to repudiate the policies of the Israeli government. But when that criticism extends to the denial of Israel to defend itself; when it becomes conflated with talk of the "Jewish lobby" and conspiracies about the Jews infiltrating Parliament, owning the media, or running US foreign policy; when it embraces objections to the Jewish State's right to self-determination, then it is unequivocally anti-Semitic. For then it stirs an ancient hatred and whips up an all too recent horror. 

The Jews are leaving Europe not because the Jihadists are coming, but because they are here, dwelling among us. They hate Israel and they loathe Jews, but we say almost nothing and do very little. Instead, we let the Jews emigrate to Israel, and they are doing so in their thousands every year. They may be surrounded there on all sides by the enemies of Zionism. But at least they have a government which will not hesitate to protect and defend them.

Muslim mayor of Tower Hamlets orders the Palestinian flag to fly over town hall 'in solidarity with Gaza'

Lutfur Rahman, Tower Hamlets mayor

Picture: LNP

By Keith Perry
7:01PM BST 30 Jul 2014

Jewish leaders condemned the move as 'destructive' for community relations as local residents said the council should concentrate on 'potholes and bins'

Tower Hamlets's Muslim mayor Lutfur Rahman has prompted angry protests after raising the Palestinian flag over the town hall "in solidarity with Gaza".

Just 24 hours after it emerged Mr Rahman is to face trial over claims he committed widespread voting fraud, he ordered the flag to fly "in support of a ceasefire and peace".

Jewish leaders condemned the move as "destructive" for community relations as local residents said the council should concentrate on 'potholes and bins' and not international conflicts.

Mr Rahman was a member of the Tower Hamlets Labour Party and was its candidate to be the first directly elected mayor of the borough in 2010.

He was expelled from the Labour party after allegations surfaced about his close links with an Islamic extremist group called the Islamic Forum of Europe.

He is accused of using illegal tactics to win the mayoral election in Tower Hamlets, East London, in May.

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On Tuesday it emerged four voters had won their bid to have a damaging dossier of evidence heard at a full trial. Mr Rahman has strenuously denied allegations of electoral fraud.

Mr Rahman has risked causing further anger with his decision to fly the flag of Palestine over the town hall.

He tweeted a photograph of the flag, with the message: "Palestinian flag flying at Town Hall in solidarity with #Gaza and in support of a ceasefire & peace."

The move risks angering the Jewish community in the east London borough and fuelling divisions in a borough increasingly used to making headlines for the wrong reasons.

A recent review found the council's handling of the local and European election count was 'inadequate'.

Tory party chairman Grant Shapps told MailOnline: "This is an administration that cannot even organise their own election count, let alone intervene on foreign affairs in the Middle East.

"What we need is an immediate ceasefire and continued humanitarian aid, rather than empty, flag-waving gesture politics."

It is not thought that there are any rules stopping the flying of the flag over a public building.

Jonathan Arkush, vice president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, said: "Mayor Rahman should remember that he is flying a flag from a British town hall in support of an organisation that is regarded across Europe and the world as terrorist.

"It is totally inappropriate. It is also destructive of relations between the communities that make up our capital city."

In a statement Mr Rahman said: "We are flying the Palestinian flag over the town hall as a humanitarian gesture of our solidarity with the people of Gaza.

"In addition to the current military onslaught, the blockade of Gaza is causing a humanitarian catastrophe. Over 1,000 people have been killed, most of them women and children. An urgent aid corridor needs to be opened to allow those injured to receive treatment and medical care.

"We mourn the loss of life in this tragic conflict. We call on our Prime Minister to help create a lasting peace that breaks the cycle of violence between Israelis and Palestinians and prevents any further loss of innocent lives."

An estimated 1,200 Palestinians and 55 Israelis have been killed in the conflict. Israel launched its offensive in Gaza after a surge in rocket fire from the territory.

Hamas, which controls Gaza, has said it will not stop fighting until a blockade on the area, maintained by both Israel and Egypt, is lifted.

Already this month there have been angry rows about Preston Town Council and Bradford Council flying the Palestinian flag.

David Israel of the Leeds Jewish community said the Preston council was wrong to take sides in the conflict. "Innocent Israeli civilians have suffered through war and conflict," he told the BBC.

"If you're going to put up one flag you need to put up the other flag to show support for innocent civilians on both sides on the conflict."