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In this mailing:
Israelophobia
by Fiamma
Nirenstein
December 18, 2013 at 5:00 am
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While vows are always made to fight
anti-Semitism, its existence is not even admitted where it is found in its
most frequent and obvious forms: among media and university
"intellectuals;" among certain NGOs; in international institutions,
such as the United Nations and its offshoots; within the European Union; in
"liberal' organizations ostensibly promoting human rights -- and as a
way of life, as well as a way to reinforce identity, in the Muslim world.
Anti-Zionism today, from Malmö to
Qom, arises and multiplies entirely from prejudice. Most of Israel's most
vicious critics have never even set foot in the state.
Such falsehoods have not only had
some success; they have become mainstream. There is no protest against them
from political parties, with few exceptions, or most cultural groups.
The problem of the Jews today, the world over, is not anti-Semitism but a
new branch of it: "Israelophobia." The most productive fight for
world Jewry and its allies at the moment would be not against anti-Semitism,
even though Israelophobia is a part of it, but against Israelopbia itself.The observances that took place in Europe to commemorate Kristallnacht, which took place on November 9, 1938, were abundant: no Jew could be unhappy about the surrounding sympathy, the public proclamation of the need to remember, the absolute rejection of any anti-Semitism, and even more, the rejection of any genocidal fervor against the Jews. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, one of many resolute speakers, said that the Germans must show their "strength of character, and promise that anti-Semitism will not be tolerated in any form." It was a point of view echoed by all European leaders, and it was nice to hear. Unfortunately, however, these words are only a cheap way to address the problem. They do not keep in check all the other promises -- those to destroy the Jewish world, starting with Israel. If the fight against anti-Semitism were actually to be fought from memory and history, many programs, such as Holocaust studies in schools, movies on TV, trips to Auschwitz, interfaith dialogue, and the historical shame of racial laws would have had a deeper resonance in the European soul. Even Iran's Supreme Leader, Ali Hosseini Khamenei, occasionally embraces some local Jew and explains that he has nothing against Jews. In the Islamic world the commitment to kill Jews has a special religious character, as can be seen from the Hamas Charter -- in which Jews are accused of having caused all wars, and promises are made to kill them all, one by one, down to the last Jew -- as well as other positions taken by Hamas's parent organization, the Muslim Brotherhood. In other countries, such as Turkey, the discourse is different: the death sentence is first on Israel, and only secondarily on Jews. Either way, hatred of Israel, or Israelophobia, seems a fundamental element of Islamic ideology today, but does not stop just at that. The term Israelophobia seems to stem from a prejudice and irrational hatred of Israel. The word was used for the first time, as far as I know, by Richard Prasquier, President of CRIF (the umbrella organization of the Jewish communities in France), and was presumably the obverse of "Islamophobia," a term used to define a huge cultural prejudice with a racist character towards the religion of the Prophet, while armies of human rights defenders stand guard against any element of discrimination against people of the Islamic faith. "Israelophobia," on the other hand, is steeped in centuries of anti-Semitic stereotypes, but it has now taken on an intense life of its own, often rich in contemporary fabrications -- for example, that historically Jews have never lived in Jerusalem; that IDF soldiers harvest the organs of Palestinians; that the "wall of separation," built to keep out terrorists, is a form of apartheid -- and through these falsehoods gushes forth a hatred for Jews. Israelophobia is a block of hatred crystallized around a piece of land, around an idea. Anti-Zionism today, from Malmö to Qom, arises and multiplies entirely from prejudice against Israel: many of its most vicious critics have never even set foot in the state. These attacks on Israel are all too often made up of devastating classical anti-Semitic projections, lies and distortions to delegitimize Israel -- the blood libel that Jews kill non-Jewish children to use their blood to bake matzah; bottomless greed; indifference, and savage cruelty toward anyone who is not Jewish. Even legitimate geopolitical decisions -- such as the right to self-defense, or not being expected to hold territory in perpetuity until such time as one's sworn enemies might perhaps decide not to threaten annihilation, with no cost for the delay; or ignoring other countries accused of "occupation," such as Turkey in Cyprus, Pakistan in Kashmir or China in Tibet, while singling out only Israel for opprobrium. These accusations are often translated not just into judgments against Israel, but then go viral against any Jew. Such falsehoods have not only had some success; they have become mainstream. There is no protest against them from political parties, with few exceptions, or most cultural groups. Moreover, countering these lies or honoring historical truths count for nothing: facts just disappear. Thus, while political correctness does not allow for outright anti-Semitism -- all the TV presenters are ready to say a kind word to the Jews as a "different religion," and that they are appreciated as a "minority" -- anti-Israelism is not only on the rise; it is fashionable and snobbish. To say "that shitty little country," as the French ambassador to London, Daniel Bernard, did, is commonplace. As Daniel Schwammenthal has written in the Wall Street Journal, before there was anti-Semitism without Jews; now there is anti-Semitism without anti-Semites. No one -- not even most of the Jewish leadership -- will publicly ascribe anti-Semitism to anyone except possibly the occasional neo-Nazi group. While vows are always made to fight anti-Semitism, its existence is not even admitted where it is found in its most frequent and obvious forms: among university and media "intellectuals;" in certain NGOs; in international institutions such as the United Nations and its offshoots; within the European Union; in "liberal" associations ostensibly promoting human rights -- and both as a way of life, as well as to reinforce identity, in the Islamic world. Recently, during a dinner with a high level diplomat, while discussing the increasing anti-Semitism in Europe, he responded with absolute amazement. "I have never met an anti-Semite in my life," he and his wife assured me; "I am sure that many of my closest friends would say the same thing: these episodes are sporadic, done by extremist groups, especially on the far right." That is not, however, the case. No one, either on the left or right, believes Israelophobia to be a violation of human rights, or defends the Jewish people from this all-encompassing prejudice that covers the history and character of the Jewish people with lies. An attack on Israel is seen, rather, as a legitimate critique of a sovereign country; the revival of anti-Semitism (which is what it is) against the Jewish people is therefore considered not important. European Jews, and even a large number of American Jews -- possibly hoping to avoid being the target of such a chill, and possibly hoping to join the bandwagon to fit in better with their non-Jewish neighbors -- have sidestepped a position of total support for Israel, and instead appear reticent and opportunistic. At a meeting with the Italian Foreign Minister shortly after Italy's unilateral recognition of Palestine at the UN, none of the representatives at the meeting of international Jewish leaders, apart from this author, dared to ask for an account of that event. Any obvious lie can be told about Israel; it will always find a huge echo of consent. Reality and facts are always removed. In his latest book, The Devil That Never Dies: The Rise and Threat of Global Antisemitism, Daniel Goldhagen lists slanderous remarks that others have made about Israel, such as: Israel is a source of disorder for the neighboring countries; the cause of the dictatorships in the Middle East; the greatest threat to world peace; the Nazis of our time; it inspired the war against Iraq, it controls U.S. policy; it foments hatred toward the Americans and the West; it perpetrates genocide against the Palestinians; it wants to destroy the Al Aqsa Mosque; it murders Palestinian children; it poisons wells and people, and so forth ...Israel's policy of sexual non-discrimination was called "pinkwashing," on the grounds that the attitude of respect toward gays, as opposed to the persecution of them in Muslim countries, is purely for propaganda purposes. Much work has also been done to deconstruct the birthright of the Jews in Israel, claiming that their relationship to the land is non-existent, distant or inconstant. Another notion with which Israelophobia is packed is "illegal," often referring to the occupation of territories, but also to the very existence of a country that was never accepted by its neighbors, since day one, when five Arab armies attacked it in the hope of stamping it out before it could even start. Of all the Asian or African democracies, according to Goldhagen, Israel is the most solid and the oldest; and, as the 57th member nation of the UN -- before Spain, Italy, Germany --- not a moment has passed without its existence being threatened by the terrorism and the religious and tribal hatred of the Muslim world, accompanied often by Europe. In defending itself, Israel has lost 30,000 men, proportionally equivalent to 1.18 million Americans. It has lost 4,000 people to terrorism, the equivalent of 157,000 Americans. When, after yet another defensive war, Israel ended up pushing back Jordan and capturing the West Bank, which Jordan had occupied, it immediately offered to return the land -- only to have the offer rejected by the Arab League in the form of the three "Nos" of Khartoum: "No peace, no recognition, no negotiation." When Israel made peace with Egypt, it had no problem returning the Sinai Peninsula, down to the last inch of land. But the responsibility for the difficulties of maintaining the peace with Egypt is always attributed only to Israel, which has never said or done anything that even vaguely resembles the aggression of its neighbors. It is nevertheless accused of the worst possible crimes and moral abjection -- charges which countries such as South Africa, for example, endorse without even bothering to verify whether or not they are true, claiming Israel is a country where apartheid is practiced, and forbidding government ministers to travel there. It does not matter if its democratic institutions and human rights record receive the highest ratings from Freedom House. It is mystifying that the UN recently condemned Israel for abuses in the Golan Heights, when in fact Israel accepts wounded Syrians and treats them freely in hospitals, while their own leader, Bashar Assad, tears them to pieces. The consequence of Israelophobia is, not surprisingly, that anti-Semitism linked to Israel is on the increase. According to a study by the German Friedrich Ebert Foundation, 63% of Poles and 48% of Germans think "Israel is conducting a war of extermination against the Palestinians." Meanwhile, 41% of the British and 42% of the Hungarians think the same thing, as well as 38% of Italians. In the survey, 55% percent of Poles and 36% of Germans responded: "Considering Israel's policy, I can understand why people do not like Israel." Respondents in other countries studied agree with this at percentages that range from 30-40%. According to a survey by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), 48% of European Jews interviewed have heard or read the accusation that "Israelis behave towards the Palestinians as the Nazis did to the Jews." In Italy, as in Belgium and France, 60% percent reported the same. The mainstream "narrative," as it Is now called, although false, claims there was a "historic Palestine," which the perfidious Jewish "settlers" occupied, and from which they expelled the suffering population; yet this "narrative" is the basis of the hatred that leads to the toxic myths of the apartheid wall, the demolition of houses (would London allow houses built in Hyde Park; or Paris in the Bois de Bologne, or Berlin in the Tiergarten?); the persecution of the Palestinians and their children beaten and killed; the Zionist jailer locking Gaza in a cage; and, conversely, the glorification of terrorists, the widespread justification of attacks and missiles rained on Israel; the corrupt use of European public funds; the rejection of the very existence of a state for the Jewish people despite the acceptance of several self-declared Islamic "Republics," such as Pakistan and Iran; and Israel as considered an archeological remnant of colonialism, imperialism and a reincarnation of all evil forces, especially Nazism. Daniel Schwammenthal also mentions Jack Straw, the former British Foreign Secretary, who last month in the House of Commons, said that AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby in America, "has made its unlimited funds one of the greatest obstacles to peace between Israelis and Palestinians" -- again a false statement; but, says Schwammenthal, the notion that that a large group of Americans can support Israel must be, to Straw, so incredible that consequences at once impossible and disastrous are ascribed to it. What actually does seem incredible that people such as the Greek composer Michael Theodorakis or José Saramago, a Portuguese writer who compared Israel's treatment of Palestinians to the Nazis' treatment of Jews at Auschwitz, and so many other intellectuals and notables, would be fully recruited for the Israelophobic battle. In other incredible events, when, in Germany, on the anniversary of Kristallnacht, Badische Zeitung published a cartoon by Horst Haitzinger in which a snail with the head of a dove goes to the peace talks with Iran, in a classic case of anti-Semitic slurs in which Jews are cast as poisoners, saboteurs and warmongers, Israel's Prime Minister,Binyamin Netanyahu is shown on the phone saying, "I need poison for doves and snails." There seem three main reasons why Israelophobia exists:
The current Administration probably did not foresee this disastrous side effect, but it seems clear is that in designing the policy that prohibited the use of the word "jihad" in official U.S. documents, no one stopped to think about how many times that term has been used to explain terrorism against, for example, Israel. That point apparently does not strike anyone there as relevant to the president's international policies. Hatred toward the Jewish state, even in its most extreme forms, was apparently not regarded as having any political significance, and therefore has not, in recent years, been subjected to any ideological or moral sanction. As for the relationship with Iran, it is clear that President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry are leading the world towards acceptance of a military nuclear program for a country that has repeatedly spoken out in public about genocidal intentions. The U.S. negotiators seem to have easily swallowed a deal that destroyed any leverage for future negotiations; that had every benefit for Iran and effectively no benefits for the West; that assisted Iran in its quest for nuclear weapons instead of stopping enrichment, in accordance with six UN resolutions; that contained no improvements in human rights for Iran's citizens; and did not address Iran's threats, illegal under the UN Charter, to obliterate a fellow member-state, Israel. Continual threats against Israel have also been coming from the Sunni world. In Egypt, Mohamed Badie, the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, said, "We will continue to wave the flag of jihad against the Jews, our first and greatest enemies." Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi stated, "Allah has imposed upon the Jews a continuing punishment for their corruption. The last was led by Hitler. There is no dialogue with them other than the sword and the gun. We pray to Allah to kill every last one of them." New, is the complete lack of reaction to these positions.
No one in it has ever told the Palestinians that it is "not helpful" to repeat every day, especially during negotiations, that Israel is a murderous, racist, genocidal country -- a charge most recently leveled by Sa'eb Erekat, the head negotiator of the Palestinian delegation. In a word, by seeming to give Islam a free hand in exchange for nothing in return, the current U.S. Administration has allowed the most severe hostile messages, both Israelophobic and otherwise, to spread without caution. Without America standing guard, all non-Muslim countries become fresh prey for their detractors. On human rights, ironically, the organizations purportedly supporting them have spared no weapons in attacking Israel, one of the countries most conscientious about enforcing human rights despite the almost impossible conditions of a tiny country finding itself under military, economic or diplomatic attack -- often all three -- virtually every day since its birth. The assault from human rights groups cannot have resulted from observing facts. If pure facts were observed, Israel should be at, or near, the top of any list of nations that embody human rights. Anti-Western nations, however, which form majority at the United Nations, began associating Zionism with racism in 1975 -- probably meaning "Western imperialism." The claims were then advanced, and financed, by anti-Semitic NGOs, culminating in the UN's Durban Conferences. At that point, human rights became distorted into being used as a shield behind which to escalate attacks against Israel, as well as to protect UN "peacekeepers" in Africa from the "food for sex" scandal, where they sexually abused the children they were charged to protect. The systemic disease with respect to "anti-imperialism" arose in the history of a political wing that, at a time when communism proved to be totalitarianism, chose not to complain about it, but to fight at its side against capitalism, imperialism, and whatever else then seemed an "injustice." The Jews, however, with their history of suffering and death, no longer correspond to the image that they, more than any other comfortable white person in the West, are ammunition for the war against "bourgeois," or middle class, society. The Marxist economic view of class warfare can be seen as "win-lose" -- meaning, if I "win," it must have been by exploiting someone else, who "lost". The capitalist economic view, on the other hand, can be seen as that of "win-win": if you win, everyone wins: the rising tide lifts all boats with it. It is this capitalist view that has catapulted societies to undreamed-of success. From the Marxist model of winners versus losers, however -- which was popular in the early 20th century until it was proven catastrophic in nations such as Russia and Cuba, where the only winners turned out to be the few men in charge -- arose the use of the issue of human rights, often as a tactical and political weapon against anyone who even looked well-off -- especially against Israel, probably as the embodiment of a nation of mostly white people who, despite so many ongoing efforts to stamp them out, were not even slowed down. The 1960s ushered in "radical-chic" verbal aggression, still in use, whereby the world is suddenly filled with "fascists." Considered as such were Margaret Thatcher, George Bush, Silvio Berlusconi, and Ronald Reagan, followed by writers and singers -- simply because they were not communists. Thus Israel, a friend of America, but which allegedly caused suffering to the Palestinians (a poor Arab third-world Muslim population, that, although no one ever talks about it, is accustomed to fierce and authoritarian leadership toward its own people), became a "fascist," "imperialist" country: because it was not in the "correct" camp, that of the "people's democracies" -- all of them in fact dictatorships, then and now. The lack of clear condemnation of European terrorism, rationalized in various ways -- for instance, as comrades who had made a few mistakes -- was accompanied by justifying international terrorism against Israel: from the attack at the 1972 Olympics in Munich, up to the glorification of the terrorists recently released by Israel, who received the red-carpet treatment from Mahmoud Abbas, and were rewarded by the Palestinian Authority with checks for $50,000 each, plus a monthly stipend. One of these recently released terrorists had killed a father who was driving with his little girl by his side; another had killed a survivor of the Holocaust with a pickax; and another attacked and dismembered a man who worked in Gaza in an office that provided aid to the Palestinians. These events are a subsection of Israelophobia in a world that legislates to have a smoke-free environment, but not against child-marriages or honor killings or female circumcision, and that has never felt the need to deal with terrorism against Israel, or with the human rights to which the Israelis might be entitled. A few months ago, Baroness Catherine Ashton fretted publicly about the state of a Palestinian prisoner who had chosen the path of a hunger strike, yet she took no position on the massacres in Syria, not even those of the Palestinians in the Yarmouk refugee camp, where many Palestinians were massacred by the Assad regime's air raids. The Jews, meanwhile, know that by staying within the established boundary of "Never Again," they find sympathy, understanding, and protection. Israel, on the other hand, is terra incognita, where any criticism, it seems, is considered "legitimate." But Israelophobia has nothing to do with legitimate criticism of the State of Israel: it is not based on any observation of reality. It is an obsession, the clearest expressions of which are the UN's "Zionism is Racism" resolution of 1975; the fury with which nine motions were recently passed against Israel at the UN General Assembly, which were commented on even by a translator accidentally speaking into an open microphone; and when the UN General Assembly pushed through a total of 23 similar resolutions, in all of which legitimate defense becomes the cruelty of a "racist" and murderous country. There needs to be a strategy which considers the consequences of Israelophobia. It would encompass the history of Israel, its values, its actions, its right to defend itself -- and the verbal and physical abuse to which it is constantly subjected. It is also necessary to continue fighting anti-Semitism. Any other option will allow terrorism -- against both Jews and non-Jews -- to grow.
Related Topics: Israel
| Fiamma
Nirenstein
U.S. Should Not Send Iraqi Jewish Archives to be Destroyed in Iraq
by Nabil Al-Haidari
December 18, 2013 at 4:00 am
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The question is: How can the archives
be sent back to Iraq without real guarantees, particularly as the government
claims it has multiples of that volume in Iraq? If so, why does the
government not fully conserve and maintain the existing volumes and then
place them in museums and exhibit them so they can be of use?
The other question is: Where are the
rights of the Jews of Iraq today? The Iraqi government should return to them
their citizenship, then returned to them all property and assets unjustly and
wrongfully plundered, and compensate them for the great losses they suffered.
How can an archive be returned without its true owners? Such an act is
unreasonable and unacceptable.
This fall, two Iraqi experts travelled to the U.S. to study the archival
material of Iraq's former Jewish community, in order to prepare measures of
conserving it so that they can take care of the archive when it is returned
to Iraq. At present, work is progressing rapidly in the branch archives in
College Park by a team of experts with high-tech equipment for cleaning and
restoration and digitization of records and documents.It is strange that there is much talk today about sending the Jewish archives next year to the Iraqi Department of Antiquities in Baghdad, although it is not clear where it is to be kept or exhibited. The question is: How can the archives be sent back to Iraq without real guarantees for its preservation, maintenance and access, particularly as the government claims it has multiples of that volume in Iraq? If so, why does the government not fully conserve and maintain the already existing volumes and then place them in museums and exhibit them so they can be of use? The other question is: Where are the rights of the Jews of Iraq today? If the Iraqi government acknowledges their great history, it should return to them their citizenship, first and foremost. In the First Interfaith Conference convened in Suleimania last year this author demanded that they be given their parliamentary seats, just like other religions, then have returned to them all property and assets unjustly and wrongfully plundered, and be compensated for the great losses they suffered. How can the archive be returned without its true owners? Such a act is unreasonable and unacceptable. The Iraqi Jewish archive includes a large number of valuables, pictures and documents of the Jews of Iraq. The archive was kept by the previous regime in terrible conditions, partially immersed in water and exposed to damage. It was discovered by U.S. forces accidentally while searching for weapons of mass destruction. The archive was found in a flooded basement cellar and managed to be collected and dispatched to the National Archives in the United States for restoration, maintenance and preservation.
Today there remain in Iraq only seven Jews, according to the New York Times, whereas they once made up a third of the population of Baghdad, according to Mir Basri in his book about the Jews of Iraq, in which which wrote about more than 100 individuals who contributed to building modern Iraq. If there are still many Iraqis who regard Jews -- and now Christians who are being massacred -- as less than human, why should they regard their archives as worth more? The truth is that the Holy Quran considers the Jews as people of the book, and Moses is their prophet to whom God gave the Torah. There are dozens of verses that favor them in the Quran, such as the verse "we gave the people of Israel the book, the wisdom, the prophecy and provided them with sustenance and exalted them among the nations of the world". And the Quran described the Torah as light and guidance from Allah. Many of the shrines of Jewish prophets are still in Iraq, such as that of the Prophet Nahum, in the village of Alqosh near Mosul; the Prophet Heskel [Ezekiel] in the village of Kifl near Hilla; Ezra in Qurna where the two rivers meet; Joshua in Al-Karkh in Baghdad; Daniel in Kirkuk close to the castle; Ezair in Basra in an area called by his name; as well as countless other personalities and scholars. These people should be honored, celebrated and glorified as they live on in the hearts and minds of the honorable and the faithful. History underlines their achievements in letters of gold immortal through the ages. At meeting was convened in London by a large number of Iraqi Jews, there were demands that their archives be kept outside Iraq; they include an important part of their heritage, their history, their life and their personalities. Already, one man has claimed that some of these documents refer to him personally, and as such he is the sole owner and that they have been seized from him unjustly and wrongfully. According to Dr. Harold Rhode, the archives -- which are scheduled to be returned to the Iraqi government in June -- are stolen property to begin with; sending them to back Iraq would be like sending back to Germany property stolen from the Jews by the Nazis. At the meeting, Edwin Shuker spoke of the archive and its importance, displaying a number of documents transferred from Iraq to America in 2003. They had been found in the underground cellar of the Iraqi Intelligence Center, immersed in water and about to disintegrate save for the last-minute efforts of the U.S. Army. One of the most important items displayed by Shuker was his own school certificate that he said is part of his history, his life, his core relationship and his love for Baghdad, where he recalls his little house in the Batawin area. The archive contains many such personal documents, for example, a photograph of Farah Sheena, aged thirteen, a young girl with dark hair, taken during her studies at the intermediate school in Baghdad, where she was an elite student. According to her brother, Sami Sheena, Farah died of cancer in England in 1968, at the age of 29, leaving behind a husband and two small children. Doris Hamburg, Director of Programs for the Preservation of Archives, said that the record of Farah Sheena was one among nearly 2,700 books and tens of thousands of documents retrieved from the destroyed cellar of the secret police in Baghdad. Also discovered was a 400 year-old Hebrew Bible, a 200-year-old Talmud originally from Vienna; and a small Passover Haggadah, kept by the former Iraqi regime but stored in a despicable state, exposed to damage and flooding. There was also a French prayer book dating back to 1930, and a collection of beautifully printed speeches by a Rabbi in Germany from the year 1692. There are also folders filled with school records of students from 1920 to 1975. Most of the Jews were forced out of Iraq by means of the farhud [seizing of property, pogrom] murder, imprisonment and withdrawal of citizenship, leaving behind traces of a rich history dating back 2,500 years. The archive shows clearly that the Jews were immensely distinguished in various political, social and economic fields. There is no doubt that Iraq owes a lot to the Jews of Iraq in terms of its history, development and prosperity. In contemporary history, to name a few, Sir Sasson Heskel, one of the best 20th century finance ministers of the Middle East, and the first finance minister who served Iraq with distinction. Among other accomplishments, he negotiated with Great Britain for oil revenue payments be made in gold instead of paper currency — a far-sighted request since soon after, the currency depreciated and gold climbed to considerable heights. He was bitterly mourned by many; the poet Ma'rouf Al- Risaffi said: "Do not say he died/ But that fine men lost a star/ We lost in a darkly night /The master of Parliament when he speaks." As to banks and banking, the Jews in Iraq were peerless. There was the Bank Zilkha, Bank Credit, Bank Aboody and Eastern Bank, with many branches throughout the Middle East, India and beyond. More than half of the 18 members of the Baghdad Chamber of Commerce were Jews. It was only thanks to their consummate professionalism that Iraq was not adversely affected during both world wars. The first neurologist in Iraq was Jack Abood, who studied in Baghdad and London, and undertook the establishment and management of the first mental hospital and treated his patients proficiently with dedication and meticulous care. Daoud Gabbay treated poor patients in Amara and Baghdad, providing free medication, and had long queues of people in front of his surgery. Women wiped their shoes in front of his surgery as they do when visiting holy places as a sign of respect and belief in his great ability to heal the sick. Many used to visit him in the middle of the night, but he never tired of treating them with all the love and care. Seeking to to modernize and not embarrass, the Alliance School was the highest educational establishment; Laura Khadoori opened the first school for girls in Iraq. The first shelter for Muslim orphans was instituted by Menahem Daniel from his own private income; today it has been transformed into a theatre club, to hide the features of the Jews in Iraq and their services. The first Iraqi civilian pilot was Selim Sasson Saleh Daniel who studied aviation in Britain, bought a small plane, came to Baghdad in the early 1930s, and was later appointed an officer in the Directorate of Civil Aviation. The first brick house built in Baghdad, the house of Shamash, was demolished to build Hotel Babylon. While other people maintain historic landmarks, we erase our historical memory. A petition was written to the U.S. Administration; it was signed by many attendees, appealing to the Administration not to return the archives to Iraq, as they constituted a natural right of Iraqi Jews after all the tribulations, tragedies, displacement and suffering that they had endured. This intervention represents a call for preserving this history and its glories, as well as striving to restore usurped rights for a community with a brilliant 3000 year history that has exceeded the Muslims and Christians. A great history of three thousand years cannot be erased by fifty years of suffering, distress and displacement, and will remain immortal written in letters of gold -- good people of various religions and sects coexisted together and intermarried and lived with affection, integration, harmony and peace. The place of the United States is to save a heritage, not to be complicit in destroying it.
Related Topics: Iraq
UK Government Crackdown on Muslim Radicals Obstructed by Islamists
by Irfan Al-Alawi
December 18, 2013 at 2:00 am
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"We need to realise that some
institutions have wanted to get rid of radicalisers but have not had the
means to do so -- so we want to help Islamic centres and mosques to expel the
extremists." — UK Prime Minister David Cameron.
The state aims to "restrain
dissenting voices and clamp down on normative Islamic belief." —
Hizb-ut-Tahrir.
The British authorities, in a ministerial declaration
by Home Secretary Theresa May, have announced new government measures to curb
hate preaching by Islamist radicals. Deterrent actions were enumerated on
December 4 in an official document entitled, "Tackling
Extremism in the UK: report from the Prime Minister's task force on
tackling radicalisation and extremism."BBC News, in an unsigned report also posted December 4, under the headline: "Theresa May to 'address gaps' in anti-extremism powers," described the government strategy as including provisions for "Muslim chaplains… trained to challenge extremist Islamic views on university campuses." Home Secretary May further said the program could include judicial orders banning radical groups; intervention with internet providers to stop extremist materials from reaching the public, and the encouragement of public complaints about such internet content. According to the same BBC News article, the recommendations were produced by "a taskforce on extremism... set up after the killing of soldier Lee Rigby," slain in London on May 22. Michael Adebolajo, 28, and Michael Adebowale, 22, have been charged with the Rigby crime and are now on trial, but deny guilt. Described in the London Guardian on December 9, by Esther Addley and Josh Halliday, in a dispatch entitled "Lee Rigby trial: Adebolajo admits killing but says he was obeying Allah," Adebolajo admitted that he killed and attempted to decapitate Rigby, a British soldier run over by a car before the assault on him. The two men are charged with hitting the victim with the car and then striking him with a meat cleaver and knife. The Guardian, however, stated in the same article, that Adebolajo said he had acted as a "soldier of Allah," and was therefore free of the accusation of "murder" for his act. According to the Islamist militant, the unprovoked death of Rigby was a "mission" in an "ongoing war" and could not be considered a crime. Adebolajo also declared that he "loved" Al-Qaida, the members of which he called "my brothers. I've never met them but I love them. I consider them my brothers in Islam." As reported by Cahal Milmo and Oliver Duggan of the London Independent on May 24, in an article entitled, "Michael Adebowale and Michael Adebolajo: The two polite young men that met at university who would become known as the bloodied Woolwich murder suspects," the pair are both British-born, but of Nigerian Christian descent; they became Muslim as adults. The Guardian on May 23, in an investigative feature headed, "Woolwich attack suspect identified as Michael Adebolajo," with the bylines of Sandra Laville, Peter Walker and Vikram Dodd, disclosed that Adebolajo and Adebowale both studied at Greenwich University in 2004-05. Adebolajo had "attended meetings" of Al-Muhajiroun, an extremist group banned by the British state in 2010. The same report also revealed that the Adebolajo and Adebowale "featured in counter-terrorism investigations over the last eight years." But, according to the newspaper, it was "understood that, while they were known to the police and security services, they were considered peripheral figures among the many extremists whose activities cross the radar of investigators." BBC News, in an earlier unsigned report, "Islam4UK Islamist group banned under terror laws," on the prohibition of Al-Muhajiroun, posted on January 12, 2010, when the ruling was announced, said that Al-Muhajiroun had adopted a new title: "Islam 4UK." The name-changing Islamists, however, were shut down under Britain's 2000 Terrorism Act. In the context of previous lax policies toward men such as Adebolajo and Adebowale, their shared university experience, and the role of Al-Muhajiroun, the UK government task force was formed to "close gaps" in the official British response to radical Islam. The new government plan includes strengthening the powers of the UK Charity Commission, which regulates religious and other charities, to stop hateful preaching, according to BBC News. The same BBC News account stated, "There will be a public consultation on some of [the government's] recommendations, including whether the home secretary should have new powers to ban groups which preach hatred – if that is what the police advise. And the government will consult on whether people who attempt to spread extremist views should be banned from getting in touch with those who they are seeking to radicalise and whether they should be prevented from entering certain premises, such as schools or colleges." In contrast to the U.S., where hate preachers and radical ideologues can appeal to the constitutional protection of free speech, Britain has hate-speech laws that treat radical indoctrination and organizing as incitement to terrorism.
The Mail described the remedy for hateful incitement by Islamists suggested by the Cameron administration as comparable to an ASBO. Under Britain's Crime and Disorder Act 1998: an ASBO may be imposed on anybody who "has acted… in an anti-social manner, that is to say, in a manner that caused or was likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress to one or more persons not of the same household as himself." An ASBO "prohibits the defendant from doing anything described in the order." The news of Cameron and May's proposals elicited immediate critical reactions from certain Muslims. The London Independent on December 4, headlined, "Government crackdown on radicals 'will lead to attacks on Muslims,'" by Oliver Wright and Nigel Morris. "A fresh crackdown on Islamist extremism," they warned, "risks backfiring by fuelling anti-Muslim prejudice and driving hardliners underground;" and cited Fiyaz Mughal, the director of Tell Mama, which records anti-Muslim incidents. Mughal expressed his worry that the new official report and its recommendations would reinforce negative stereotypes about Muslims. The newspaper quoted Prime Minister Cameron, who was travelling in China. Cameron said, according to Wright and Morris, "I thought it was very important to have a proper look through all of the UK's institutions to make sure we really are doing everything we can to drive out radicalization. This is not just about violent extremism, this is about extremism that leads to radicalisation and particularly Islamist extremism." Cameron asserted that "too many people" were radicalised at Islamic centres or had followed extremist preachers, and that such agitators were not "sufficiently challenged." "I want to make sure in our country that we do this effectively," Cameron told the Independent. "But we need to go further than that and realise that some institutions have wanted to get rid of radicalisers but have not had the means to do so – so we want to help Islamic centres and mosques to expel the extremists." British Islamists were quick to condemn the updated Cameron approach. CagePrisoners, a London-based advocacy group that, according to its website, "exists solely to raise awareness of the plight of the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and other detainees held as part of the War on Terror," accused the British government of an "attempt at creating a state-sponsored, depoliticised Islam… an attempt to criminalise dissent." The transnational Islamist movement Hizb ut-Tahrir [Liberation Party, or HT], on its British website, proclaims, "With western democratic models in ruins the Muslim world must look to achieve accountability without democracy." HT commented on the British government's latest effort to contend with radical Islam in a manner similar to that of CagePrisoners; HT alleged that the state aims "to restrain dissenting voices and clamp down on normative Islamic beliefs." A May 8, 2013 post on Gatestone Institute, entitled "Britain's Feckless, Two-Faced Approach to Radical Islam," warned that in the UK "a necessary, firm, and united opposition to radical Islam remains lacking at the official level." It still remains to be seen whether Prime Minister Cameron has adopted such an attitude effectively -- and if it will be derailed by Islamist opposition.
Related Topics: United
Kingdom | Irfan Al-Alawi
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