Britannia Radio

 

Anti-Semitic hate crimes rise sharply

Apr. 20, 2009
JPost.com Staff , THE JERUSALEM POST

Anti-Israel protest [illustrative]

Despite the fact that 2008 showed a marked decline in anti-Semitic incidents worldwide, hate crimes directed against Jews rose sharply in the beginning of 2009, with a wave that included physical assaults and attacks on synagogues and cemeteries, according to a report released Monday by the Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and Racism at Tel Aviv University.

 

According to the study, which was released in conjunction with the opening day of the Durban II UN racism conference in Geneva, although the anti-Semitic outbreak precipitated by the start of Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip "featured traditional anti-Semitic motifs, their use was more extreme, intensive, and vociferous than was hitherto known."

Among those perpetrating the attacks, Muslim activists and organizations "showed a high degree of mobilization," the report said, "and were the moving force" behind many violent demonstrations. They were also joined by "leftist and human rights activists, and to a lesser extent extreme-right circles. Jews and former Israelis also took part in some of the rallies, mostly in the US."

The report emphasized that it was still too early to determine the exact number of incidents, but cited statistics showing that 250 incidents were recorded in January of 2009 in the UK, as opposed to only 35 during the correlating month in 2008, including a tripling of the number of violent assaults. The report assessed that in January alone, some 1000 "manifestations of anti-Semitism of all types" occurred throughout the world.

According to the report, the number of violent incidents declined to a large extent in February and March of this year; however, "the atmosphere of anti-Jewish and anti-Israel rage has not yet subsided." The report said that the pattern was similar to the one recorded in the wake of the Second Lebanon War in the summer of 2006.

"The leitmotif of anti-Semitic expressions evident at the beginning of 2009 was not classic stereotyping of the Jews and Israelis as Jews, but abuse of the Holocaust, first and foremost, as a political tool against Israel, with the analogy of Israelis/Zionists/Jewish supporters of Israel with Nazis becoming almost an axiom," the report said. "This outright equation － Magen David=swastika － is intended to underline that if Nazism, the monster of the modern era, has no right to exist, then the Jewish state and its supporters, too, should be eliminated."

The report said that the comparison, "especially among younger generations," caught on easily "because of widespread ignorance regarding the Holocaust and its uniqueness, as well as the history and politics of the Middle East crisis."

The desire on the part of the younger generation and among left-wing activists to name "a symbol of evil to combat" in order to cure "the world's maladies," as well as "radical Muslim propaganda, which efficiently enhances the image of the child-killer Jew," have "turned anti-Zionism into anti-Semitism," the report added.

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Intel. Report: Iran Will Use Latin America to Attack US, Israel

Nisan 26, 5769, 20 April 09 02:06

by Malkah Fleisher

 

Obama's New best friend.

 Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez

 

(IsraelNN.com) Just two days after US President Barack Hussein Obama shared a controversial and landmark handshake with Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez at the Summit of the Americas, the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center has released a study analyzing the flowering alliance between the increasingly anti-Western Latin America and the virulently anti-Israel Iran.

The study was conducted at the Israel Intelligence Heritage & Commemoration Center (IICC), a non-governmental organization dedicated to Israeli intelligence and terrorism issues.

According to the study, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is using anti-Western Hugo Chavez as a springboard into several Latin American countries, such as Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Ecuador, where he intends to establish a religious, terrorist, political and economic foothold in South America.  Iran has already made major inroads in its relationship with Venezuela and Bolivia, largely based on shared anti-American sentiments.
 
Iran will utilize this developing relationship to challenge the United States, parts of Asia, and Africa, said the study.

The Islamic Republic will also leverage petrodollars and Muslim operatives positioned throughout key Latin American countries to implement a radical anti-Western agenda, fight America's anti-nuclear policy, and to slash international economic sanctions according to the IICC. 

In addition, the report warns that Iran may launch anti-American and anti-Israel terror attacks through intelligence and terror networks in South American countries.

Ahmadinejad, who hosted a "World Without Zionism" conference in 2005, promoting his goal to "wipe Israel off the map", has already succeeded in wounding Israeli diplomatic relations in the region, with Israel's diplomatic core being forced out of Chavez's Venezuela and Bolivia during the anti-terror Operation Cast Lead in January 2009. 

Khomeini-inspired Shi'ite Islamic and Iranian revolutionary propaganda is being exported by Iran into non-Muslim and Muslim communities in Latin America, in large part through its terror proxy, Hizbullah, which is raising funds for operation by uniting with South American drug and crime cartels.

The IICC report cites several U.S. intelligence and military officials expressing concern over rising Iranian activity in Latin America, and increasing numbers of converts in the region to Islam.

Chavez and Obama exchanged a warm greeting on Friday, and again on Saturday, at which time Chavez presented Obama with a book on American and European imperialism in South America.

Chavez, who said being in Iran's capital city of Tehran made him feel "like arriving at one's own home", told reporters he shared a good moment with Obama, who he called "intelligent."  The Venezuelan dictator once referred to former US President George W. Bush as "the devil" at a meeting of the United Nations.

Venezuela and Israel enjoyed a strong relationship in the past, with Venezuela voting in favor of Jewish statehood at the United Nations on November 27, 1947.

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