Belgium: Muslim violence against Jews part of Israeli-Palestinian problem, says US ambassador

Gutman meanwhile regrets his words ‘have been misinterpreted‘.

Via EJU:

US Ambassador to Belgium, Howard Gutman, whose father was a Holocausty survivor, presented a different view on anti-Semitism.

“The temptation always exists at conferences discussing perceived biases, prejudices, discrimination and even hatred, to cite a couple of anecdotal instances of violence or hatred, sound an alarm, rally a response, take the applause and sit down,” he remarked.

(…)

“What I do see as growing, as gaining much more attention in the newspapers and among politicians is the problem within Europe of tension, hatred and sometimes even violence between some members of Muslim communities or Arab immigrant groups and Jews,” “It is a tension and perhaps hatred largely born of and reflecting the tension between Israel, the Palestinian Territories and neighboring Arab states in the Middle East over the continuing Israeli-Palestinian problem.”

He said that during his visits to different places in Belgium, the “longest and loudest ovation” he has ever received came from the high school with one of the largest percentages of Arab descent.

“These kids were not anti-Semitic as I have ever thought of the term,” the ambassador said.

(source)

Malmö: Rabbi tells of constant harassment by young Muslims

Via Norway, Israel and the Jews (translated from Dagens Nyheter):

Seven years ago the Jewish Rabbi Shneur Kesselman and his wife moved to Malmö.

(…)

People have spat at him, threw empty soda cans at him and called him a “Bloody Jew”. Shneur Kesselman, many times in recent years realized what hatred can drive people to and how it feels to be hated.

The Malmö police have a binder with reports he filed. There are some eighty “incidents” recorded. Sometimes Shneur doesn’t have the energy to report the harassment he was subjected to because he is Jewish.

(…)

Who express this hatred?

- For the most part it is young Muslims and this should not be ignored. It is tragic that it should be so, that hatred is rampant in religious circles.

(source)

Oslo: Palestinian refugee camp gets to stay

Via NRK (Norwegian):

A planned police operation against the Palestinian tent-camp in central Oslo has been cancelled Monday by the new city government.

Hassan Al Nemnem (30) came to Norway two years ago. For the past seven months he’s been living on the street, and in a camp at the Jacob’s Church of Culture together with 25 other Palestinian asylum seekers.

“I came to Norway for a better life. To return to Gaza is not an alternative for me,” he tells NRK.

Last week he and the others were told the tent-camp must be removed. Monday the planned police operation against the camp was stopped by the new city government.

“It’s tragic that nobody is shutting down the camp,” Morten Ørsal Johansen, immigration police spokesperson for the Progress Party, told NRK. “A city government that instructs the police is simply brazen. They’re asking the police to break the law.”

Ola Elvestuen (Liberals), commissioner for the environment and transport, is the one behind it all. The first thing he did when he was appointed as commissioner in Oslo was to ask to police not to shut down the camp.

“Those who do nothing, can do no wrong. Therefore I hope Elvestuen does nothing in the future instead of making decisions like these,” says Ørsal Johansen.

The Palestinian asylum seekers have been living in the makeshift tent camp next to Jacob’s Church of Culture since April. Twenty five people live in the camp today, all their asylum applications were denied.

The Progress Party’s new immigration police spokesperson thinks there’s now just one thing to do: deport them from Norway.

“We’re talking here about Palestinians who are residing in Norway illegally. Their applications were rejected, and that means they should be returned voluntarily to their homeland. If they don’t leave Norway voluntarily, it’s up to the authorities to deport them.”

Ola Elvestuen (Liberals) emphasize that the tent-camp will be shut down sooner or later.

“We must first establish a dialog with the Palestinians who live there, and find a solution together. We’ve just now put together a new city council. Eventually we’ll find out how to deal with this case. What’s certain is that they can’t have a tent camp standing forever.”

Ørsal Johansen thinks that’s not enough, and he wants the Justice Minister to get involved. ” Knut Storberget is responsible for the police and the immigration authorities in this country. Now he should make a decision in this case,” he concludes.

————————-

The ‘Norway, Israel and the Jews’ blog has more on the Palestinian refugee camp in downtown Oslo.

Update: Slight translation fixes

Oslo: Disagreement between Jewish community and Islamic Council over religious racism report

A recent study mapping out religious racism in Oslo schools, grades 8-10, shows that Jews are harassed much more than other groups. 33.3% of Jewish students said they were harassed more than once a month because of their religion, compared with 9.9% of Buddhists and 5.3% of Muslims. The average was 3.5%.

62% of the students said that students called each other ‘Jew’ at their school. 51.5% said they heard the word ‘Jew’ used to describe something negative, 40.9% heard jokes about Jews, 35.2% said they heard negative comments about Jews, and 4.7% said they heard other students say that Jews weren’t exterminated during WWII.

Comparing how Jews and Muslims are viewed: Muslims were viewed positively by 27.5%, neutrally by 48.3% and negatively by 15.6% of the students. Jews were viewed positively by 17.2%, neutrally by 40.7% and negatively by 33.7% of the students.

The entire report can be accessed here (in Norwegian). More info can be found at Norway, Israel and the Jews (here and here), The Foreigner, and Views and News from Norway.

————

Via Vårt Land (Norwegian)

Mehtab Afsar, general secretary of the Islamic Council of Norway, says that Muslim children experience harassment to a much greater degree.

“If there’s a minority that is really given a hard time, it’s the Muslims, and it’s about time that harassment against Muslims be mapped out,” he says.

Afsar emphasizes that antisemitism, Islamophobia, and general racism are destructive phenomenon that should be battled by everybody. “It’s sad regardless of who is harassed, whether it’s Jews, Muslims, Sami or gays,” he says.

Anne Sender, former head of the Jewish community, wants Mehtab Afsar and the Islamic Council to do something about the attitudes towards Jews in their communities.

Afsar: I’m speaking generally about racism against minorities, which includes Sami and gays, while you are only concerned about yourselves and speak only of Jews. I think that isn’t right.

Sender: For years we’ve worked together with you and against harassment of Muslims.

Ervin Kohn, current head of the Jewish community, and Anne Sender, say that the attitudes of Muslims explain a lot about the deterioration in anti-Jewish attitudes in general.

Kohn: More than half of the students in Oslo schools are Muslims. They come from Societies where antisemitism is widespread. They don’t leave it at the border.”

Sender says that Muslims receive their antisemitism with their mother’s milk, but stresses that it’s not only Muslims who harass Jews in Oslo schools.

Anne-Britt Gran, who’s responsible for the report, thinks it’s remarkable that antisemitism developed from zero to widespread in just a few years. She says it’s encouraging that there’s no corresponding Islamophobia.

“Muslims are at the same level as Swedes and Germans. It’s positive from what one might expect after so much negative attention from such things as the Muhammed cartoons.”

Q: Do you think harassment of Jews stands out as something special?

A: It’s existed through history. Now it’s a long time since the war, and things have happened in the Israel-Palestine conflict. But we must look more into it. We should really investigate a phenomenon that has gone from zero to 50%.”

————

The muslimprosjektet (Muslim Project) blog writes that a while back he was visiting a Muslim family and was talking with the mother and 12-13 year old son. Out of nowhere, the mother said something about ‘the Jews’.

Mother: You know, we Muslims hate the Jews.

He was shocked, but so was her son.

Son: What are you saying, mom!? We hate Jews? That’s totally wrong! It’s the state of Israel which is the problem, not the Jews as a people!

The mother thought about it and agreed: Yes, that’s true. It’s easy to forget that.

Spain: ‘Islam’ band posts musical death-threat against journalist

Via Periodista Digital (Spanish):

Journalist and author Pilar Rahola is under police protection after a death-threat clip recorded by a band named “Islam” was posted to YouTube. The song repeats “I’ll kill Pilar Rahola”, and the clip is accompanied by a woman wearing a burka. Rahola lodged a complaint about the clip, and the Spanish authorities had turned to the US Authorities to remove the video in question. [ed: the video was already removed]

Pilar Rahola is known for her denunciations of Islamic and Arab dictatorships, as well as for defending the rights of women in Islamic societies. She recently published a book titled “The Islamic republic of Spain”. IN the past she got death threats and was designated an ‘enemy of Islam’ by Spanish Muslim organizations for her positions favoring Israel and opposing Palestinian terrorist organizations.

Israel: Huckabee meets with European Freedom parties

Translated from INN:

Mike Huckabee, currently in Israel, met today with the heads of the European Freedom parties from Austria, Germany, Sweden, and Belgium, and discussed with them the rise of radical Islam in Europe and the world, and the challenge it poses to the free world.

The parties decided to cooperate in the war against fundamental Islam. Huckabee promised to publicly support anybody who fights this phenomenon, including the Freedom parties in Europe, who lead the struggle against the Islamic religious radicalization which is currently happening across Europe.

Deputy Minister Ayoub Kara (Likud) who organized the meeting between his guests in Israel – various parliament members from Europe – and Mr. Huckabee, concluded: This historic meeting, which combines different forces in the Western world, is a breakthrough in the all-out war against Islamic terror and the disturbing takeover of the Axis of Evil over the countries in the more moderate Arab world. Today we made an important step in curbing these alarming trends by joining forces between Israel, Europe and the US, and we decided to make this issue our top priority.”

At the end of the meeting it was decided to hold an international conference in Vienna in the near future, in order to unify the forces in all countries against Islamic religious radicalization.

See here for more on the Freedom parties visit.

UK: Lost stories of solidarity between Muslims and Jews

Via Manchester Evening News:

Muslims voice their solidarity with Jews today launching Missing Pages, a campaign highlighting forgotten stories from the Holocaust.

The Exploring Islam Foundation campaign challenges misconceptions about the relationship between Jews and Muslims and is supported by Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks.

Launching in the week of Holocaust Memorial Day, Missing Pages voices Muslim solidarity with its aims and principles and draws on historical examples of peaceful co-existence between peoples of the two faiths.

The campaign will be launched at the House of Lords today at which Jewish World War II survivor Dr Scarlett Epstein OBE, who was given asylum in Albania during the Holocaust, will be speaking.

Also speaking will be celebrated Jewish American photographer, Norman Gershman, who will be talking about his project – Besa – Muslims who saved Jews in World War II.

Gershman’s photographs are currently touring the UK in an exhibition which has been jointly sponsored by the Exploring Islam Foundation and Yad Vashem (the Holocaust Memorial in Israel).

EIF Campaigns director, Remona Aly said: “We are launching this campaign today because we want to show how Islam promotes diversity and co-existence and has no tolerance of anti-Semitism.

“The message of the “Missing Pages” campaign is more vital now than ever before. Tensions in the Middle East need to be separated from the common shared theological heritage and values of the two faiths, and history of peace and solidarity between Islam and Judaism.

(source)

Berlin: A Wet Dog Is Better Than A Dry Jew


Via M&C:

As a teenager in Berlin, Arye Sharuz Shalicar was confronted with anti-Semitism on a daily basis.

At school he was called a ‘bloody Jew’ who ‘deserved to die,’ while youths on the streets threatened to beat him up because of his religious belief.

This was not 1930s Germany. Shalicar grew up in 1990s Berlin, in the predominantly Muslim district of Wedding, where the children of Turkish and Arabic immigrants engaged in gang warfare and the Berlin Wall was simply another surface to spray graffiti on.

The 33-year-old now lives in Israel, where he is an army spokesman. Last week, he returned on a rare visit to Germany, where his book has just been published, documenting his violent teenage years in inner city Berlin.

He said he still felt uneasy as he returned to the streets of his youth, where he was taunted daily until he earned respect as a gang member.

‘There are corners where you don’t see a single German. I still don’t feel comfortable in Wedding,’ Shalicar said.

(…)

‘Until I moved to Wedding, my Jewish identity did not interest me one bit,’ he said. ‘It’s shameful really, how little I wanted to see that this was my destiny too. I thought we were living in a modern world where other things matter – I guess I was wrong.’

When his Jewish identity came to the fore, his many Muslim friends and classmates disowned him and Shalicar risked attacks on his path home from school. He was faced with a choice: live a life of evasion and shame, or fight back.

‘The fear I experienced, at the age of 14 or 15, is beyond words. It was a daily panic: what can I do to simply walk the street in peace in my own neighbourhood?’ Shalicar said.

(…)

‘In Wedding, I met Muslims who were good to me and Muslims who were very bad to me,’ he noted.

They included people who loved and defended him, irrespective of race or religion. But he also met ‘real fanatics, who were raised wrongly and live in the wrong environment and carry this hatred within them.’

‘If you experience both extremes, then I think you understand how life really works, because these poles exist in every society,’ Shalicar said.

(more)

Prophet Musa and his brother Harun had been called upon by Allah to deliver a message to the leader of the Egyptians, Fir’awn (Pharaoh), who considered himself a god and insisted that his subjects worship him.

Prophet Musa told Fir’awn that he, Musa, was a messenger of the Lord of the Worlds and that he had clear proof of it. Therefore, Fir’awn should let the people of Israel go with him. Prophet Musa showed Fir’awn the staff that turned into a serpent and the hand which turned shining white when placed under his arm. Fir’awn consulted with all his chiefs and they decided that perhaps Musa was just a very good magician. They called together all their best magicians to compete with Prophet Musa. The magicians were promised a reward if they won.

The magicians went first in the contest and they were good, really good. They made their ropes and sticks appear to run in front of their audience. Prophet Musa was afraid that he couldn’t surpass their skills, but Allah told him not to be afraid. When Prophet Musa threw down his staff, it ate up all that the magicians had made. When the magicians saw this, they bowed down and proclaimed their belief in the Lord of Prophet Musa and Harun.

Fir’awn was not very happy about this turn of events. He threatened to cut off the hands and feet of the magicians and to crucify them. But the magicians would not change their opinion. They were convinced by the clear proofs which Prophet Musa had shown to them and they told Fir’awn that he could only end for them their life in this world. For those who believe there would be another life after death, in gardens beneath which rivers flow.

Following this there began another period of persecution against the followers of Allah. Fir’awn had all of their sons killed. Prophet Musa had to encourage the children of Israel to continue strong in their belief in Allah and to pray to Allah faithfully.

Whenever good fortune befell the Egyptians, they took credit for it. When misfortune came, they blamed Prophet Musa and his people. They failed to see that everything, both good and bad, comes from Allah. Allah sent all kinds of hardships against the Egyptians- famine, loss of fruits, floods, locusts, pests, frogs, and blood- as signs to them. They would promise to free the people of Israel if Musa would pray to his God for deliverance from the pestilence. But as soon as the hardship had been removed, they would go back on their promise.

Finally Prophet Musa was instructed by Allah to lead the followers of Allah away by night. When they came to the sea, the waters parted so that they could pass to the other side without getting wet. However, when Fir’awn and his armies pursued them, the waters of the sea closed in on them and they were all drowned. In this way did Allah punish Fir’awn for leading his people away from Allah.

Insha Allah in the next issue we shall relate the conclusion of the story of Musa , when we tell what befell the children of Israel after they left Egypt. You can read about Musa and Fir’awn in al-Quran 7:103-137; 20:49-79; 26:16-67; and 43:46-56.

Related posts:

1. Prophet Musa – 2
2. Prophet Musa
3. Prophet Ibrahim (2)
4. Prophet Lut
5. Prophet Ibrahim (1)

(Haksöz Haber congratulations)

A top official in Rotterdam, Bilal Taner, is in contact with a Turkish radical-Islamist organization, which is fiercely anti-Israeli and anti-American, openly supports the Hamas terror organization and glorifies martyrdom for Jihadists.

The warm personal connection with Rotterdam senior adviser Bilal Taner was recently clarified when he was extensively congratulated in an orthodox-religious manner on the Haksöz Haber website for the birth of his daughter. This website serves as a platform for radical Islamists, anti-Israeli and anti-American authors. The radical Turkish movement reject societies which are not based on the Koran.

The International Institute for Counter-Terrorism wrote in a 2005 report that “Haksöz is a Turkish-language Jihad website which glorifies martyrdom, calls for resistance against the occupation in Iraq and the Palestinian territories and shows torture scenes in Iraq”. The website shows photos of dead Hamas members with titles such as “to the light of the Koran” and “The martyrs light our way.”

The movement supports the armed struggle of Hamas, Which is called a terrorist organization by the EU. In the German-language American Jewish Committee 2006 report “Antisemitism – Made in Iran” (Antisemitismus – Made in Iran) it says: “The goals of Haksöz include uniting Muslims in the battle against Israel and the United States”.

The orthodox-religious congratulations to ‘our brother in Rotterdam’ is signed by prominent members of the Turkish Hasöz Haber movement. Several of the congratulations to the Rotterdam policy official come from important activists who were passengers on the Mavi Marmaris, one of the ship in the flotilla which recently tried to break through the Gaza blockade. The attempt ended in a bloody encounter with the Israeli navy where several people were killed. The dead activists are honored as martyrs by Haksöz.

Prominent members of the Turkish organization Özgür-Der also congratulate ‘our Rotterdam brother’. Özgür-Der is an organization which works closely with Haksöz Haber. Özgür-Der said in a recent publication that the US intimidates the Muslim world with the occupation of Afghanistan.

Sources in the municipality characters the high official as ‘a man with extreme religious views’. Leefbaar Rotterdam responded in shock to the De Telegraaf research. “Inconceivable that such people are taken for such important positions. Apparently officials are not screened before they deal with precarious issues as integration,” says council member Anita Fähmel. She demanded a written clarification from the city administration.

In the past Fähmel asked Parliament to deal with the Turkish Fethullah Gülen organization. “This eventually led to a study by the state of this organization, in which you saw infiltration of ultra-orthodox Muslims in the municipality and municipal districts.”

The top official refused to comment, despite extensive written questions from De Telegraaf. The municipality says they see “no reason to doubt his integrity”.

Source: De Telegraaf (Dutch)