New "Anti-Semites" Week of Oct. 4 - Oct. 10 2007

WHO: Egypt
WHY: Apparently because in the first century CE, Greeks and Romans in Egypt instigated the first anti-Jewish pogrom in recorded history in the Greek city of Alexandria.
FOR THE RECORD: Alexandria was a Greek/Macedonian transplant into Egypt founded after the conquest of the country by Alexander the Great and the cited progrom was between Greeks and Romans and Jews - not Egyptians - in Greek Alexandria under Roman control. "But still conflicts perpetually arose with the Greeks, and although the Roman governors did every day punish many of them, yet the violence grew worse. But at this time, when there were tumults in other places as well, the disorders among the Greeks and Jews became even more violent. ..." Flavius Josephus, Jewish War, 2.487-498. The obvious implication of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs piece is to continue with the vilification of modern Egypt.
SOURCE: Interview with Pieter W. van der Horst, "The Egyptian Beginning of Anti-Semitism's Long History," Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, October 2007

WHO: Europe in general
WHY: For having the audacity to criticize Israeli policies twoard the native Palestinian people: "Oil-funded propaganda combined with latent anti-semitism and large-scale immigration of anti-semitic populations has turned Europe into a cauldron of simmering anti-Israel hate that has led to academic boycotts of Israel, and that hatred and ignorance is manifesting itself on American campuses such as Columbia."
FOR THE RECORD: "Europeans, however, generally view resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as key to reshaping the Middle East, fostering durable stability, and decreasing the threats posed to both the United States and Europe by terrorism and Islamic militancy. The EU’s first-ever security strategy, released in December 2003, cites resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a top EU priority. Many European officials charge that Washington has focused too much on Iraq and has an unbalanced, excessively pro-Israeli policy. In this view, the United States is alienating the broader Muslim world, which perceives a U.S. double standard at work. European leaders have clamored for the United States to 'do more' to get Israeli-Palestinian negotiations back on track, precisely because they recognize that only sustained U.S. engagement at the highest levels will force the parties to the conflict, especially Israel, back to the negotiating table." Kristin Archick (Congressional Research Service), "European Views and Policies Toward the Middle East," CRS Web, 9 March 2005
SOURCE: Gamaliel Isaac, "A History Lesson for Columbia," Intellectual Conservative, 10 October 2007

WHO: Sir Kingsley William Amis, Wiki: "(April 16, 1922 – October 22, 1995) was an English novelist, poet, critic, and teacher. He wrote more than twenty novels, three collections of poetry, short stories, radio and television scripts, and books of social and literary criticism. He fathered English novelist Martin Amis."
WHY: "Professor Terry Eagleton, a Marxist professor of cultural theory at the University of Manchester, had made the accusations a preface to his new book Ideology: An Introduction. He called the Lucky Jim author 'a racist, anti-Semitic boor, a drink-sodden, self-hating reviler of women, gays and liberals'."
FOR THE RECORD: "However, Sir Kingsley's second wife, the novelist Elizabeth Jane Howard, and his homosexual brother-in-law Colin Howard have sprung to his defence. In a letter to the Daily Telegraph, Ms Howard wrote: 'Kingsley was never a racist, nor an anti-Semitic boor. Our four great friends who witnessed our wedding were three Jews and one homosexual.' She added: 'I never heard him behave in a racist manner towards Jews, nor when he was teaching in Nashville did he accept the prevailing attitude of the racist whites against the black people there.' And Mr Howard, who lived with Sir Kingsley and Ms Howard for 17 years, explained: 'During that time, we became very close and affectionate friends. Prof Eagleton is, at the least, careless in his description of Kingsley as homophobic.' He continued: 'Calling him anti-Semitic should be actionable were it not so absurd.'"
SOURCE: "Amis family denies 'racist' allegations," InTheNews.co.uk, 10 October 2007

WHO: Archbishop Desmond Tutu [Generally speaking, once the accusation is thrown once it is repeated over and over again, so once we list a victim of this libel one time we usually do not bother to do so over and over again. However, this particular charge against Desmond Tutu, we just couldn't resist listing him twice.]
WHY: "Also attending the Conference is anti-Semite Desmond Tutu (Tutu not an anti-Semite because he is anti-Israel---he is an anti-Semite because he hates JEWS. ... Boston conference participant, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, is another major contributor to the Durban Strategy. In a speech at a 2002 Sabeel conference, Tutu repeatedly labeled Israel an "apartheid state," and compared the Israeli government to Stalin and Hitler. Following criticism of Tutu's anti-Semitic and anti-Israel statements, the University of St. Thomas (Minneapolis-St. Paul) revoked his invitation to their spring 2008 conference."
FOR THE RECORD: "Archbishop Desmond Tutu will speak at a Minnesota university after all. Less than a week after it was revealed that Tutu's appearance at the University of St. Thomas was nixed over comments deemed offensive to Jews, the university's president announced Wednesday he had made a mistake by disinviting Tutu. ... Jewish critics pointed to a speech Tutu delivered in 2002 in which he compared Israeli practices to those of the apartheid regime in South Africa. The university's decision to rescind the invitation to Tutu, a Nobel Peace Prize winner and internationally recognized humanitarian, prompted an uproar and revived claims that U.S. Jews seek to quash public criticism of Israel. On Tuesday, Anti-Defamation League National Director Abraham Foxman wrote to Dease urging him to reconsider his decision about disinviting Tutu. University officials did not say whether Foxman's letter affected Dease's decision, but they said Dease received a steady stream of phone calls and e-mails when the story broke last week." "Tutu reinvited to Minnesota college," JTA News, 10 October 2007
SOURCE: Yid with Lid "Boston to Host Sabeel's Israel Hatefest on Oct. 26/7," 10 October 2007

WHO: Ashkan Dejagah, 21, a German-Iranian soccer player for Bundesliga club VfB Wolfsburg
WHY: For withdrawing from an upcoming match against Israel to be held in Tel Aviv citing "personal reasons," that is, not wanting to play Israel or violate Iranian law by going to Israel. To quote the source: "Surely this nasty little anti-Semite should be shown up for what he is, rather than indulged for his SO CALLED "plausible" reason? If he had said he wasn't going to play against a Muslim team, or of he said that he wouldn't play against a homosexual team (Chelsea, for example...joke) then I bet he would be castigated for his intolerance. But when it's Jews...."
FOR THE RECORD: "An Iranian-born player in Germany's under-21 national soccer team has withdrawn from an upcoming match against Israel citing "personal reasons", the German Football Association (DFB) said on Monday. ... "He came to us citing personal reasons that seemed very plausible," DFB spokesman Jens Grittner said. Dejagah could not be reached for comment, but tabloid daily Bild quoted him as saying his motive was political. 'It has political reasons. Everyone knows that I am German-Iranian,' he said of the decision to withdraw. Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iran has refused to recognize Israel's right to exist and Iranian citizens are forbidden from travelling to Israel." Catherine Bosley, "Soccer-Iran-born German player withdraws from Israel match," Reuters, 8 October 2007
SOURCE: David Vance, "BLOWING THE WHISTLE ON ANTI-SEMITISM," A Tangled Web, 10 October 2007

WHO: Jeff Halper, Israeli founder of ICAHD. Wiki: "The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) describes itself as 'a non-violent, direct-action group originally established to oppose and resist Israeli demolition of Palestinian homes in the Occupied Territories.' It was founded by Jeff Halper, a former professor of Anthropology at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. ICAHD opposes what it calls the 'matrix of control' that Israel has established over the West Bank and East Jerusalem and sees the dismantling of this control as the only path towards peace. They also actively campaign against what they believe are Human rights violations and an emerging apartheid."
WHY: "Israeli human rights activist and author Jeff Halper argues that in the Israel-Palestine conflict the two-state solution is dead and that apartheid has taken over. ... 'We use apartheid in a very precise way. We don't use it as a slogan. We have been very careful about it. Apartheid is a system that can't be exported,' Halper told a group of about 40 people during a talk Sunday at Memorial United Church of Christ in Fitchburg. An apartheid system is one of separation in which one population separates itself from the others, Halper said. 'And that's what Israel calls its policy.' The other element of apartheid is domination, he said. 'One population separates itself from the others and then dominate them. Permanently and institutionally.' Israel's offer to withdraw from 95 percent of the West Bank will create not peace, but rather a Palestinian prison state, said Halper, who has been called 'a Jewish anti-Semite.'"
FOR THE RECORD: This is just another example of smearing people that are critical of Israel and Israeli policy with the "anti-Semite" label.
SOURCE: Samara Kalk Derby, "Activist/author calls Israel-Palestine conflict apartheid," The Capital Times (Madison WI), 8 October 2007

WHO: The Washington Post and its contributior, Geoffrey Wheatcroft (also a regular contributor to The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Wall Street journal, and The Guardian)
WHY: "Bernard Lewis once noted that an anti-Semite is a person who criticizes Israel while refusing to acknowledge other countries have similar flaws. The same may be said for Mr. Wheatcroft and the Washington Post."
FOR THE RECORD: "Former literary editor of London's Spectator, Wheatcroft describes himself as "a genuine neutral or agnostic" on the Arab-Israeli conflict, seeing right and wrong on both sides. In this dispassionate yet opinionated history, which sweeps from Theodore Herzl's Zionist dream to Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's assassination in 1995, Wheatcroft condemns the 1975 United Nations resolution equating Zionism with racism as gravely malicious, a reflection of the Arab states' malignancy. While praising Israel as "a unique island of constitutional government in the Levant," he echoes the observation of U.S. journalist I.F. Stone that Zionism involved a psychological act of denial along with a physical act of displacement of Palestine's Arab population." From the Publishers Weekly review of Geoffrey Wheatcroft's "The Controversy of Zion: Jewish Nationalism, the Jewish State, and the Unresolved Jewish Dilemma" as presented on the Amazon.Com page for the book.
SOURCE: Mark Graber, "Double Standards at the Washington Post," Balkinization, 8 October 2007

WHO: The play "Jewtopia" and apparently its authors, Bryan Fogel and Sam Wolfson
WHY: "But that's Jewtopia in a shell-free nut for you: a series of clichés and worn-out jokes about, for and written by Jews that is meant to honour Yiddish humour and resilience to atrocities but comes dangerously close to self-inflicted racial profiling and internalized anti-Semitism."
FOR THE RECORD: "There's nothing here that Jackie Mason and Mel Brooks haven't milked for comedic effect either in a stand-up routine or onscreen. Fogel and Wolfson's only contribution to the cause of Borscht-belt humour is introducing the gross-out sensibility of a Ben Stiller or an Adam Sandler to the mix in a desperate attempt to appeal to a younger, urban audience."
SOURCE: Kamal Al-Solaylee, "Clichéd stereotypes. Yeah, we get it. Ha Ha ... not," Toronto Globe & Mail, 6 October 2007

WHO: The Google Search Engine, the Oxford English Dictionary, and Rudyard Kipling
WHY: Google: Because its search engine pulls up particular anti-Semitic websites when the search term "Jew" is entered. Oxford English Dictionary: because it included these definitions under the word "Jew:" "The first was the noun - 'Person who drives hard bargains, usurer' and the second the verb 'to Jew' - 'cheat, bargain with (person) to lower his price.'" And Rudyard Kipling: "I read Rudyard Kipling's brilliant teen novel 'Stalky & Co.' for the first time and was perplexed by this passage: 'Pay me my interest, or I'll charge you interest on interest. Remember I've got your note-of-hand!' shouted Beetle. 'You're a cold-blooded Jew,' Stalky groaned.'"
FOR THE RECORD: Google: "special explanation written by Google insists that while the company in no way agrees with the content of such websites, they have no plans to remove it or others. Google they claim, simply reflects what is up there on the web, without issuing judgment." The Oxford English Dictionary: "the Oxford University Press's position that the dictionary was there simply to record the use of words and their history, not to act as a guardian by keeping language clean." And Rudyard Kipling: "I know that Kipling, like a number of other famous late-Victorian writers, was more than a little anti-Semitic, but that doesn't stop me from enjoying his writing, or that of Graham Greene, Evelyn Waugh and even the sainted George Orwell, who all displayed similar tendencies at one stage or another of their careers. We will gain nothing by posthumously sanitizing their works, just as trying to censor dictionaries and search engines won't help us to understand and confront mankind's most ancient hatred."
SOURCE: Anshel Pfeffer, "Moves to censor the dictionary may not help fight anti-Semitism," Ha'aretz, 6 October 2007

WHO: State Rep. Marlin Schneider (D-Wisconsn Rapids) and others asking for a full investigation of the USS Liberty incident in 1967
WHY: "Schneider became interested in the matter in 1998, when he got an e-mail from an Oshkosh man asking whether the federal government could be petitioned about an investigation of the attack. 'I thought it was a no-brainer, an attack on an American ship in which a young sailor from Fond du Lac, Duane Margraaf, was killed,' Schneider said. 'But someone warned me that this would be viewed as an assault on the nation state of Israel. As soon as you say something about it, the Jewish lobby crawls all over you, and they call you an anti-Semite.'"
FOR THE RECORD: "His resolution went nowhere, and the Assembly decided not to petition the federal government about anything, after which Schneider's fruitless resolutions asked other states to petition Congress for an investigation. The men who served on the Liberty believe that the attack was deliberately carried out by the Israelis. 'I talked to some of the guys who were on the ship who said that Israeli planes flew over for hours on a sunny day when the American flag was clearly displayed and even tipped their wings,' Schneider said. 'But all the sudden they launched a violent attack. A distress signal was sent to the Sixth Fleet, which sent planes to intercept the planes attacking, but Lyndon Johnson and Robert McNamara literally called the planes back. They were not allowed to defend the ship.' Despite the Tribune investigation, Schneider doesn't think that Congress will do anything about the matter."
SOURCE: Anita Weier, "'67 spy ship affair resurfaces: State pol pursued probe of attack," The Capital Times (Madison, WI), 4 October 2007