More Anti-Semitism From an ISNA Outlet

The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), arguably the nation's most politically influential Muslim organization, has a habit of contradicting itself. On one hand the group sponsors a campaign to stop hate speech and incitement to violence in the media; on the other hand it sanitizes an anti-Semitic book review in the latest issue of its publication, Islamic Horizons.

This is not the first time that ISNA's assertions about standing against bigotry and for dialogue have failed to trickle deeper into the group's actions and editorial oversight.

In its September/October 2009 issue, Islamic Horizons offers a summary of a book review from a previously unheard of writer named Ushruf Subreen. The summary whitewashes Subreen's original, full review of Martin Indyk's most recent book, Innocent Abroad. Read more ...

Source: IPT News

ISNA
Latest recipients of The Goebbels-Warner Award

"Nazi Israel:" Obama's Official Web Site Equates Israel to Nazi Germany

"The majority of the Israeli policies are the exact copies of the Nazi policies"

By Bill Levinson

Barack Obama’s official Web site, over which Barack Obama’s organization exercises editorial control, carries an entry that equates Israelis to Nazis and their treatment of Palestinians to the Holocaust. Emily and her fellow moderators at Obama for America apparently did not consider an entry that compares Israeli Jews to Nazis as “disrespectful to our other users and detract from a welcoming community where all people can engage in positive discourse.” Here is the material that Obama for America approved for posting.

Nazi Israel ... Indeed

Richard Falk, the professor of international law at Princeton University and the UN’s special rapporteur on the Palestinian territories, had accused Israel of violating international law, international humanitarian laws, and the Geneva Convention. He described Israel’s policies against Palestinians and its siege of Gaza as “war crimes”, “genocidal tendencies”, “holocaust implications”, and “holocaust-in-the-making”. He urged the International Criminal Court to look into the possibility of indicting Israeli leaders for war crimes. Read more ...

Source: Israpundit
H/T: Ted Belman
Richard Falk
my.barackobama.com
Latest recipients of The Goebbels-Warner Award

Israel hits back over Swedish organ harvesting article

JERUSALEM (CNN) - Israel on Sunday withheld the press credentials of a Swedish newspaper in retaliation for a controversial piece that suggested the Israeli army kidnapped and killed young Palestinians to harvest their organs.

The journalists need the credentials to report from Gaza.

"We have no duty to supply them with press cards immediately; (we) have 90 days to decide about their status," said Danny Siman, the head of the government press office.

The article, "Our sons are being stripped of their organs," appeared Tuesday in Aftonbladet and was an opinion piece written by freelance journalist Donald Bostrom.

Bostrom told CNN he had no proof that Israeli soldiers were stealing organs, and that the purpose of his piece was to call for an investigation into numerous claims in the 1990s that such activity was going on in the West Bank and Gaza.

Even though the Swedish embassy distanced itself from the report, the country's foreign ministry refused to condemn it -- saying Sweden has a "free press."

The refusal has rankled Israel, which said it will submit an official complaint.

"This is an anti-Semitic blood libel against the Jewish people and the Jewish state. The Swedish government cannot remain apathetic," said Israel's Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz.

"We know the origins of these claims. In medieval times, there were claims that the Jews use the blood of Christians to bake their Matzas for Passover. The modern version now is that the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) soldiers use organs of Palestinians to make money."

He continued: "It makes no difference whether this comes from a neo-Nazi organization or from an honorable newspaper. The Swedish government must renounce itself from this anti-Semitic publication."

The article centers around the case of Bilal Ahmed Ghanem, a 19-year-old Palestinian man who was shot and killed in 1992, allegedly by Israeli forces, in the West Bank village of Imatin.

Bostrom, who witnessed the man's killing, said Ghanem was taken away by Israeli forces while he was still mortally wounded. His body was returned five days later with a cut in his midsection that had been stitched up.

Ghanem's family said they believed that his organs had been removed.

After that incident, at least 20 Palestinian families told Bostrom that they suspected the Israeli military had taken the organs of their sons after they had been killed by Israeli forces and their bodies taken away -- presumably for routine autopsies.

Bostrom said he balanced those claims in his article by including a reaction from an Israeli military spokesman who told him that the Israel Defense Forces routinely carries out autopsies on Palestinians killed by their troops.

But, as he stated in his article, Bostrom said he has doubts about the necessity of the procedures if it is clear how the person died.

Last week Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman compared the Swedish Foreign Ministry's hands-off position to the country's neutrality during World War II.

"It's a shame that the Swedish Foreign Ministry fails to intervene in a case of blood libels against Jews," Lieberman told Sweden's ambassador to Israel on Thursday evening. "This is reminiscent of Sweden's stand during World War II, when [it] had failed to intervene as well."

Source: CNN

Donald Bostrom
Aftonbladet
Latest recipients of The Goebbels-Warner Award

The Nazification of Israel: Guardian op-ed by prominent European philosopher inverts Nazi terminology against Jewish state

Attempts in Europe to portray Israel as the modern incarnation of Nazi Germany were once the preserve of the extremists. Islamists, fascists and communists — each acting for reasons of their own — have employed the technique to portray the Jewish state as the epitome of political evil with which no compromise can be made and for whom total eradication is the only acceptable outcome.

It is a sign of the times, however, that the Nazification of Israel as a technique of denigration has begun to invade the mainstream.

In my forthcoming book — A State Beyond the Pale: Europe’s Problem with Israel — I provide an entire section on the Nazi analogy as well as some opinion poll evidence on just how widespread its usage has become. A commentary in today’s Guardian by the prominent Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek offers a perfect illustration of how the technique is now employed.

Zizek, who has near iconic status among Europe’s liberal-Left, begins his piece with some familiar distortions about the eviction earlier this month of two Palestinian families from their homes in the east Jerusalem district of Sheikh Jarrah.

Zizek presents what was in fact an eviction due to non-payment of rent as merely one instance of a broader policy of ethnic cleansing — a policy which is reminiscent, he infers, of the way the Nazis treated the Jews.

“The state of Israel is clearly engaged in a slow, invisible process, ignored by the media,” he says. “One day, the world will awake and discover that there is no more Palestinian West Bank, that the land is Palestinian-frei, and that we must accept the fact.” (My itallics)

There is plenty to be said about Israeli settlement policy and much that can be criticised. But what possessed Zizek to use, and the Guardian to allow, the term “Palestinian-frei”?

It is obviously an inversion of the Nazi term Judenfrei, literally meaning free of Jews. (Linguists suggest that it is not as strong as the term Judenrein (cleansed of Jews) but its purpose and etymology is clear.)

There is no repetition of the term. It is not dwelt upon. There is no great fanfare. It is just slipped casually into the narrative in a manner which suggests that its usage is considered by both author and newspaper as normal.

And that, of course, goes to the heart of the problem. The denigration of the Jewish state in modern Europe has now become part of such an edifice of hatred and bigotry that there are no longer any taboos. It is now possible to say anything, literally anything, about Israel, however grotesque and defamatory, and to feel no shame, to invite no censure.

No other state in the world is talked about in such a manner. And yes, it is anti-Semitism. And yes, it’s back.

To read the full article, click here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/aug/18/west-bank-israel-settlers-palestinians

Source: Robyn Shepherd

Slavoj Zizek
The Guardian
Latest recipients of The Goebbels-Warner Award

The Goebbels-Warner Award

"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it."
      - attributed to Joseph Goebbels, a Propaganda Minister in Nazi Germany.

A few months ago, an Islamophobe from Florida named Bill Warner started a defamation campaign against Muslims Against Sharia. He made numerous false claims about MASH. He accused us of "incitement to hate by others and the possible murder of President Barack Obama" as well as compared MASH to the 9/11 hijackers among other things. If you look at what was happening in Nazi Germany seven decades ago, you'll realize that Bill Warner employs identical tactic as Joseph Goebbels. The same hateful bigotry that Goebbels displayed towards Jews, Warner displays towards Muslims. The same lies and conspiracy theories that Goebbels was spouting about the Jews, Warner is spouting about MASH. Warner's rhetoric is virtually identical to Goebbels' rhetoric 70 years ago.

We thought that Bill Warner mimicking of Dr. Goebbels deserves special recognition. As of today, we're instituting The Goebbels-Warner Award. The Goebbels-Warner Award will be given to those who attempt to discredit their opponents by fabricating facts or making baseless accusations and repeating them ad nauseam.

More on Bill Warner: Insane P.I.

Insane P.I. Bill Warner
Latest recipient of The Goebbels-Warner Award