Latest Divestment Effort Results in Yet Another Failure for BDS Movement

Opponents of Israel have been engaged in efforts to wage economic warfare against the Jewish State via Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaigns for several years now. The latest such initiative, which failed this week, was a campaign to pressure Sonoma County in Northern California to stop working with Veolia, a French transportation company that is allegedly guilty of “servicing Israeli settlements in the West Bank.”

A resolution to consider not renewing the county’s contract with Veolia, which provides transit services worth $7 million, was considered on Tuesday by the county’s Human Rights Commission.The commission voted 5-4 against the resolution. It will “hear the issue further” at its August meeting, according to news reports.

In the seven years since the formal launch of an international campaign to boycott Israel, no American college campus in the United States has divested from Israel or companies that work with Israel. No church. No retirement fund. Israeli merchandise, including beauty products, hummus, and couscous, continues to be readily available on store shelves around the country.

Despite the obvious lack of mainstream appeal, many domestic anti-Israel groups – including the “North Coast Coalition for Palestine,” which was responsible for the recent campaign in Sonoma County – seem to be unwilling to recognize defeat. Even a petition circulated by the group, which was posted to the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation’s Web site, garnered less than 300 signatures.

While these campaigns are used by anti-Israel activists as a delegitimization tactic, they have never had much chance of success. In this case, even if the Human Rights Commission would have voted in favor, it has no power to enact policy and would only have been able to present a recommendation to the county’s Board of Supervisors. Many divestment resolutions that are considered on college campuses are similarly non-binding.

New Biased Billboard Campaign in Westchester

Several misleading billboards featuring maps of Palestine/Israel from 1946-2010 sponsored by a local anti-Israel group are currently on display in Metro-North train stations in Westchester.

The billboard at a Metro-North train station

The billboards attempt to showcase that all of Israel was owned by Palestinians pre-1948 when, in reality, much of the land was owned by non-Palestinian absentee landlords who lived in Cairo, Baghdad, Damascus and Beirut. They also try to convey that Israel is rapidly taking control of land that would comprise an eventual Palestinian state. 

ADL issued a statement on the billboards, describing them as "deliberately misleading and biased."   

The group that placed the ad, the Committee for Peace in Israel and Palestine (COPIP), and its chairman, Henry Clifford, have a record of advocating against Israel. The group, for example, recently endorsed the Jewish Voice for Peace-led divestment campaign targeting TIAA-CREF for investing in companies that allegedly help Israel maintain the occupation. In the past, Clifford has inflammatorily alleged that Israeli leaders have “always planned to take over all or most Palestine and to expel as many Arabs as would be necessary.”

What is perhaps most troubling is the group’s attempt to explain Palestinian terrorism as a result of Israeli policy or U.S. aid to Israel. A post on COPIP’s blog from May 2011 includes a flier that reads, “Mothers do not raise their children to be terrorists. Only when all hope is lost for a decent, secure life is a terrorist created.” It later asks, “Could it be that billions of dollars in U.S. aid to Israel is actually helping to create terrorists?”

COPIP is a member group of the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, a large anti-Israel coalition based in Washington, D.C.

In the past year, anti-Israel billboards have appeared in several cities across the country, including Denver, Detroit and, most recently, Los Angeles.

Jewish Voice for Peace Lobbying Hard for Church Divestment

Update: The Presbyterian Church voted against divestment late Thursday evening, July 5. While ADL welcomed the decision, we are troubled that the issue was decided on such a narrow vote (333-331 with 2 abstentions) and that the debate was biased from start to finish with vehement anti-Israel sentiment.  

Jewish Voice for Peace has been a highly visible and vocal advocate in the General Assembly in favor of the Presbyterian Church’s consideration of a virulently anti-Israel divestment resolution. The resolution, which calls for the church to divest from three companies that allegedly profit from Israel’s occupation (Caterpillar, Motorola and Hewlett-Packard), will be voted on later today by the full plenary after it was passed in committee earlier this week.

There is much to criticize about the problematic nature of the resolution itself, but one of the more disturbing elements of this campaign has been Jewish Voice for Peace’s aggressive lobbying for it.

The group invested significant time and resources to send a delegation of activists to the General Assembly who reportedly testified on the committee floor in favor of divestment and are live-tweeting the conference. A large portion of Twitter chatter about the resolution has been generated by JVP using the hashtag “#churchdivest” to provide updates on the resolution. Of tweets using that hashtag in the last 36 hours, approximately 25% have been generated by JVP and two of its staff people.

JVP activists have also created and distributed a flier called “Divest from Violence. Invest in Peace” which contains several statements from Christians who support divestment, and is circulating a petition that calls on Presbyterians to support divestment. The petition claims that the international community has failed in its efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and it is clear that BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) is now the only option left. The petition ends with, “Can you tell Presbyterians we’ve got their back?”

It is clear that JVP believes it has a very critical role to play in the domestic anti-Israel agenda: JVP promotes itself as representing the views of American Jews and can be seen as trying to provide cover against claims that the Presbyterian divestment initiatives are anti-Semitic. Nobody should be fooled. JVP is a fringe organization with its own anti-Israel agenda.

Sabeel Attacks Israel From All Angles In Its "Cornerstone" Publication

The Spring 2012 edition of Cornerstone, a publication of the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center, is a full scale assault on Israel’s legitimacy from all angles. The Sabeel Center is a driving force behind the campaign by mainline Protestant churches to divest from Israel, including a number of proposed resolutions being considered at next week’s Presbyterian General Assembly.

The publication depicts Israel as systematically racist, employs offensive Holocaust imagery and uses theological arguments to demonize the Jewish State.

An article titled The Role of the Prophet, written by Sabeel Center co-founder and executive committee member Jonathan Kuttab, notes that “Judaism brought [together] the two correctives of the Law and the Prophets.” It then describes Israel as an unjust and racist country that approves “laws that violate the interests and freedoms of the individual or the minorities living among them.”

Kuttab blames most Jews in Israel for what he perceives as unfair treatment of the Arab population, saying, “the majority of Israeli Jews, acting through their duly elected representatives are the architects of these laws.”

An article submitted by Mossawa, the advocacy center for Arab citizens of Israel, is titled Anti-Democratic, Anti-Arab Legislation in Israel. The synopsis states “there are at least 35 laws which discriminate directly or indirectly against Arab citizens of Israel.” The article lists “four key legislative measures” as evidence, citing as one example the Citizenship law, which Mossawa claims “disproportionately affects Arab citizens,” although it applies to all Israelis.

An Open Letter to Foreign Missions by Taiseer Khatib, an Arab citizen of Israel, tells a story of his wife and children having problems obtaining permanent residency inside of Israel. This problem, Khatib contends, is a result of the Citizenship Law, which he claims shows Israel’s racism since its goal is allegedly to “diminish the number of the Arab population.” He adds that this “should remind Jews in Israel of dark times in their own history, when they were themselves separated from their families, never to see them again.”

A poem titled Hear O Israel by Jewish Voice for Peace activist David Glick also makes claims that Israel is inherently racist and compares the country to Nazi Germany, saying, “But what O Israel/Have you become?/The Nazis made me fearful to be a Jew/but you [Israel] have made me ashamed.” He then writes “Time to confront the darkness we have become./With the Holocaust it is Never Forget/but with Deir Yassin it is Never Mind.”

David Duke Endorses Congressional Candidate Due to Shared Anti-Zionist Views

In a video posted to his Web site on June 20, former Klan leader David Duke endorses Charles Barron, an African-American Congressional candidate from New York. Duke says that he shares Barron’s anti-Zionist and anti-Israel views. Duke also calls Barron’s opponent, Hakeem Jeffries, a “bought and paid for Zionist Uncle Tom.” In the same video, Duke tries to paint himself as a champion of equal rights for blacks and whites while pointing to Jews as the common enemy of both.

Duke’s endorsement of Barron gives Duke the opportunity to expound on his own anti-Semitic views. Duke repeatedly asserts that Jews control the media, government and banking in the United States and calls Israel “the worst rogue terrorist state on earth.”

Duke, a long-time racist and anti-Semite, suggests that Barron’s anti-white views were foisted upon him by Jews who allegedly control Hollywood and release movies with “vicious anti-white propaganda.” In the video clip below, Duke argues that black leaders like Barron “should work to lessen the enmity between blacks and whites and realize that the Jewish extremists in America keep whites and blacks from mutually solving our interests and differences.”

                           

                       

While Duke criticizes Barron for supporting affirmative action and for espousing “extreme racist, even violently anti-white rhetoric,” he tells African-Americans that they have a lot in common with European-Americans. He claims that they both want to have control over their communities, schools and the people with whom they associate. Duke argues that African-Americans need to realize that Jews and “Zionist globalism” are the “ultimate real enemies of both our peoples.”

As a 501(c)(3) non-profit charitable organization, ADL does not endorse or oppose any candidates for political office.

Anti-Israel Billboard Campaign Hits Los Angeles

A Billboard Displayed in Los Angeles

Update: As of June 24^th, CBS Outdoor advertising took down the 23 anti-Israel billboards because the Coalition to Stop 30 Billion to Israel used the ‘CBS Outdoor’ name in their publications without permission. Nonetheless, the group said, “we hope to continue our L.A. campaign, but regardless we will be looking at other cities to continue this important work in the future.”

In a continued effort to marginalize Israel through advertisements, a new billboard campaign was launched in Los Angeles this week by the anti-Israel organization “Coalition to Stop $30 Billion to Israel.”

According to a press release issued by the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, there will be 23 billboards displayed in the Los Angeles area that read, “Tell Congress: Spend Our Money at Home, Not on the Israeli Military.”

The US Campaign’s press release asserts that the “Israel lobby” might try to put an end to the campaign, but that supporters of the billboards’ message “cannot allow them to stifle dialogue.”

U.S. aid to Israel is critical for Israel, but it is critical for the U.S. as well. Israel is required to spend most of the aid on American-made products and military equipment, which benefits the American economy. In addition, the U.S. government rightly considers providing a key ally in the region with aid to be in its own best interests.

The Coalition to Stop $30 Billion to Israel was first created in 2009 in New Mexico. The group has been responsible for anti-Israel billboards and ads in Albuquerque, Seattle and, most recently, Denver.

Press TV Airs Anti-Semitic Interviews to Mark U.S.S. Liberty Anniversary

Press TV, Iran’s English-language propaganda television station, marked the 45th anniversary of the sinking of the USS Liberty by interviewing anti-Israel and anti-Semitic activists Alison Weir, Michael Santomauro, and J. Bruce Campbell.

During the interview, which was held on June 8, the trio accused Israel of purposefully targeting the U.S. warship during the height of the 1967 Six-Day War. (The circumstances surrounding the U.S.S. Liberty, an American ship that was unintentionally fired on by Israeli forces, has been regular fodder for anti-Israel conspiracy theorists.) The interview also included several anti-Semitic statements and conspiratorial accusations of Jewish control over the U.S. government.

Michael Santomauro, an anti-Israel blogger and Holocaust denier, alleged that the USS Liberty is a cover-up maintained by U.S.-based Jewish support for Israel and the disproportionate influence Jews hold over the U.S. government. Jewish interest groups, whom Santomauro claimed provide over the overwhelming amount of funding to U.S. political parties, wield their power through what he termed “Jewish PAC money.”

J. Bruce Campbell, a contributing writer for the anti-Semitic website, Veterans Today, claimed that the attack on the Liberty was part of a conspiratorial U.S-Israeli plan he called Operation Cyanide, a secret military operation that Campbell alleges purposefully sent the Liberty to get sunk by the Israelis in order to place blame on Egypt. The desired result, Campbell claims, would have been for the U.S. to retaliate against Egypt and to “drop nuclear bombs on Cairo and Alexandria.” Campbell asserted that this was ordered by the U.S. to assist Israel in creating “great [sic] Israel stretching from the Nile to Euphrates rivers.”

When asked by the host whether he agrees that Israel controls the U.S. government, Campbell responded, “I would say the Jews in America [run the United States]. Israel is a euphemism … It is really American Jews who are behind this [the Iraq and Afghanistan wars] just as it was during 1967…” Campbell also claimed that American Jews want to kill “millions of Muslims” and “thousands of Americans. This is what American Jews want, this is what they make happen through Washington D.C.”

Alison Weir, president of the Council for the National Interest (CNI), an anti-Israel organization that opposes U.S. aid to Israel, added to Santomauro’s comment about the pro-Israel lobby and characterized the U.S-Israel relationship as an “extremely unhealthy situation.” Weir also said that large sums of donations from pro-Israel groups are the cause of “tragedy, misery, violence and war after war after war.” Weir’s comments are consistent with her record of using anti-Semitic imagery and portraying Israel and its agents as powerful forces that control American policy through intimidation and deception.

Press TV, which is based in Tehran, is used by the clerical regime to provide a platform for extreme elements and activists to air their views and opinions. Many of Press TV’s U.S.-based guests are frequently invited by the station specifically for their conspiratorial anti-Israel views. Earlier this year, Weir appeared as a guest on the station to discuss the 2012 American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference, calling the pro-Israel lobby “very dangerous to the world” and “for Americans.”

Anti-Israel Group Increases Outreach to High School Students

American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), a Chicago-based anti-Israel organization, is planning to host a joint conference on “Palestine activism” with the High School Muslim Student Association of Southern California (HSMSA), an inter-high school network of Muslim student organizations.

The conference is scheduled to take place on June 24 at the University of California, Irvine, a center for virulently anti-Israel campus activity in recent years. It is part of AMP’s 7th annual campaign to commemorate the “Nakba,” an Arabic term that means “catastrophe” and is used by Palestinians and their supporters to describe Israel’s Declaration of Independence.

AMP organizers say the conference is designed to help “train high school, college, and non-student activists on issues pertinent to Palestine activism.” The list of speakers invited to “educate” students on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict include several anti-Israel activists known for their use of rhetoric to delegitimize Israel.

Speakers include Ali Abunimah, co-founder of the anti-Israel Electronic Intifada blog; Taher Herzallah, AMP’s National Campus Coordinator and one of the 11 students arrested for shouting down Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren during a 2010 speech at UC Irvine; and Osama Abu Irshaid, an AMP board member who has previously expressed support for Hezbollah and conspiratorially alleged that the U.S. government makes decisions based on the “influential Jewish community.”

AMP targeted high school students earlier this year when it held its first high school training session in Villa Park, Illinois. The workshop was similarly organized to the upcoming conference at UC Irvine and included workshops on subjects such as the Islamic significance of Palestine, activism, and how to utilize the media.

This year’s AMP Nakba campaign consists primarily of educational and training sessions designed to “raise awareness about the occupation” and to “help bring justice and liberty to the Holy Land.” These events will be held throughout the month of June across the Southern California region, which include the cities of Hawthorne, Corona-Narco, Anaheim, Temecula, and Lomita.

AMP has increasingly made an effort to engage in facilitating student activism on college campuses and high schools nationwide. The importance of encouraging AMP’s presence among students was the central theme of the organization’s 2011 national conference, where a number of sessions were dedicated to how students can discuss the issue of Palestine in schools and on campuses. AMP’s concerted effort to engage with students has led to increased collaboration with on campus anti-Israel groups, such as Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP).

Troubling BDS News on Campus?

Two developments regarding boycott and divestment activity on college campuses hit the news this week. The first is that the student senate at Arizona State University passed a resolution supporting divestment from a variety of corporations that the proponents claim are “complicit in human rights abuses in the occupied Palestinian Territories and Sudan.” The second is that a student-run café at Evergreen State College in Washington State, The Flaming Eggplant Café, voted to boycott Israeli products.

While these announcements tend to cause rejoicing in the anti-Israel community, it is sometimes best to take stock of the real implications of these developments and consider them in their proper context.

In the case of Evergreen, it is not clear that the store previously carried Israeli products and its decision then to “boycott Israeli products” might be heavy on announcement and light on actual product changes. Similarly, there is no evidence that Arizona State University has investments in any of the companies that were cited in the resolution. If the university doesn’t, the resolution is rendered wholly irrelevant.

But even if the university is invested in some of these companies (which included, among others, Boeing, Caterpillar, Motorola and United Technologies), the resolution is worded so blandly that it doesn’t seem like it has any binding authority. The resolution proclaims, “LET IT BE RESOLVED that Arizona State University Undergraduate Student Government supports on-campus divestment from...” [emphasis added] It doesn’t actually call on the university to divest.

It is not likely that these recent developments in the boycott and divestment campaign on campus will have any concrete impact. What is unfortunate, however, is that they have the potential to isolate pro-Israel students and further corrode the atmosphere on these campuses.

US Campaign Holds Strategy Call to Discuss Anti-Israel Initiatives

The US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation held a conference call on May 31, 2012, to discuss strategies and tactics that could be used to end US military aid to Israel.

The call featured presentations by several grassroots anti-Israel activists who discussed their efforts to pass local divestment resolutions in their regions, as well as two speakers who spoke about the efficacy of anti-Israel bus and billboard ads calling for an end to aid for Israel. The call was led and moderated by Josh Ruebner, the National Advocacy Director for the US Campaign.

A rundown of the call:

• Mark Davidson, a pastor at the Presbyterian Church of Reconciliation in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, spoke about his efforts locally to unveil a bus ad campaign focusing on ending aid to Israel. He claimed that the ad campaign is almost ready and is being sponsored by several groups such as the Coalition of Peace and Justice and the Muslim Affairs Political Action Council in Raleigh.

• Joyce Guinn, an activist from a local Milwaukee group called Friends of Palestine, talked about her group’s recent efforts to divest from Israel on a city level. According to Guinn, Friends of Palestine is currently seeking to get a divestment resolution passed through the Milwaukee County Common Council.

• Cindy Corrie, the mother of Rachel Corrie, an International Solidarity Movement activist who was killed while protesting Israeli military operations in Gaza, spoke about local efforts in Washington State to divest from Israel. Corrie claimed that a resolution has been passed in Okanogan County, but it was impossible to verify that information.

• Elaine Kinch, an activist with the Racine Coalition for Peace and Justice in Wisconsin, spoke about her divestment efforts, including protesting outside a GE Shareholders Conference in late April. Kinch distributed anti-Israel pamphlets from If Americans Knew and collected signatures at the conference calling for an end to aid to Israel.

• Natalia Cuadra, a coordinator for the United Methodist Kairos Response, talked about UMKR’s recent efforts to pressure the Methodist Church to divest from Israel at the United Methodist Church Conference in April. The divestment resolution failed to pass. 

While none of these efforts seem to have much legs, it is notable that local activists have the opportunity to brainstorm and collaborate with one another in the hopes of making their movement that much more successful.

CEIRPP Paris Conference Furthers UN Anti-Israel Bias

The Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People (CEIRPP), a forum for anti-Israel rhetoric that represents the worst example of institutionalized anti-Israel bias in the United Nations, concluded a two-day conference at UNESCO headquarters in Paris on May 31.

This year’s meeting, ostensibly on “The Role of Youth and Women in the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine,” was another typical display of the CEIRPP’s attempt to portray a highly distorted image of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In typical bait-and-switch fashion, CEIRPP’s press statement misleadingly billed the gathering as “an international meeting in support of the Israeli-Palestinian peace-process,” with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon delivering a pro-peace video message to those gathered. Yet, as usual, the actual agenda was generally highly critical of the Jewish State, with speakers resorting to placing the onus of the blame for the Palestinian situation and the current stalemate in the negotiating process on Israel, while failing to offer serious constructive methods to address the challenges of the peace process.

CEIRPP, the only United Nations organ devoted to a specific people, is the single most prolific source of material bearing the official imprimatur of the U.N. which maligns and debases the Jewish State.

In a 2009 report, ADL highlighted CEIRPP’s UN funded anti-Israel agenda and activities, calling the committee an anachronism. ADL has repeatedly urged the UN to defund and disband it.

Conspiracy Theories Mark Louis Farrakhan’s San Diego Address

Nation of Islam (NOI) leader Louis Farrakhan’s nearly three-hour speech in San Diego last weekend, titled “Guidance in a Time of Trouble,” was marked by myriad conspiratorial attacks against the U.S., as well as Israel.

While media reports following Farrakhan’s remarks primarily focused on his criticism of Obama’s stance on gay marriage and his “warning” that God will severely punish America if it attacks Iran, anti-Semitism and anti-Israel vitriol marked parts of his speech as well.

Farrakhan reiterated his views about how members of Congress are “afraid to speak out against the warmongering of Israel and their control through AIPAC of your members of Congress.” “Joe Lieberman and his crowd,” Farrakhan said, are pushing for war against Iran and “moving the goalposts” for Iran on the nuclear issue.

Farrakhan also promoted the NOI’s book “The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews,” which argues essentially that the history of slavery in the New World was initiated by Jewish ship owners and merchants, who, as a group, the book maintains, remained the primary beneficiaries of the slave economy.

“How many of you have heard of the Holocaust?” Farrakhan continued. “Raise your hands. Jewish people want the world to know what Hitler did to them. Why? So it will never happen again. Don’t you want to know what was done to you? This book should be in your colleges in your African American studies. But I know who writes your pay checks.”

In addition to discussing how much of the American southwest was taken from Mexico through “trickery” and how birth control is a conspiracy by white Americans to keep the white majority, Farrakhan also attacked President Obama’s position on gay marriage. “He’s the first president that sanctioned what the scriptures forbid…Why is it that all you politicians take your oath of office on the Bible? If the book is no good, what the hell are you using it for to take an oath of office…?”

Farrakhan concluded his speech with a tirade warning America of calamity if it takes action against Iran. “So I’m warning you America, if you bomb Iran…The God that I represent is going to take out some of your cities with earthquakes… He’s going show you his power. In the meantime, one calamity after another until you submit, America, and know that judgment is here…”

University of Texas Rightly Refuses to Give in to Anti-Israel Boycott Effort

A project by the University of Texas to publish an anthology of stories by Middle Eastern women has been canceled after many of the Arab authors threatened to withdraw their contributions if they would be published alongside stories by two Israeli female writers. UT rightly refused to exclude the Israeli writers.

Several of the Arab contributors to the book, Memory of a Promise: Short Stories by Middle Eastern Women, specifically cited the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign as the reason for their decision. They initially requested that the project’s organizer, the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, remove the stories written by Israeli women. When the Center refused to do so, citing a commitment to academic freedom and non-discrimination, many of the Arab authors threatened to withdraw their contributions (“virtually all,” according to an e-mail by the Center’s director, Kamran Scot Aghaie), that the Center was forced to kill the project completely.

The boycott effort was spearheaded by a Dubai-based Palestinian novelist named Huzama Habayeb. In an interview with the Gulf News, Habayeb declared that she is “so proud of having the book cancelled” and called it a form of “resistance” to the “Israeli occupation of my homeland.” She had written a letter to other Arab contributors urging them to join the boycott and refuse to share space with “writers who reflect the voice of an obnoxious occupier,” according to an op-ed she published in the Gulf News. In the op-ed, Habayeb describes Israel in blatantly hyperbolic terms, accusing it of “‘genocidal’ practices against Palestinians” and referring to it as a “killer state.”

This incident represents a radical and nefarious turn for supporters of the BDS campaign in that it is an outright rejection of the “Israeli.” Reasonable people may disagree about the efficacy and legitimacy of protests against Israeli government officials or a boycott of Israeli products that are produced in the settlements. This is way beyond that. The two Israeli women who had contributed to the book, Yehudit Hendel and Orly Castel-Bloom, are both accomplished authors who do not represent Israeli policy or the Israeli occupation. Hendel has won numerous prizes and accolades for her literary prowess, including the Jerusalem Prize, The Bialik Prize and the Israel Prize for Lifetime Achievement. Refusing to share a publication with these illustrious women is extreme and extremely troubling.

Anti-Semite Dieudonne In the News in France

Update: Dieudonne ran unsuccessfully for French Parliament as the Anti-Zionist Party candidate from Dreux. He was eliminated in the second round of the election, receiving just 1.14% of votes cast. His film, L’Antisémite, has been banned from the Cannes film festival for violating the festival’s policy of not “threatening public order or insulting religious beliefs.”

Anti-Semitic performer Dieudonne M’Bala M’Bala has garnered some media attention in France since he announced on May 18 that he will be running for Parliament as a member of the Anti-Zionist Party (Parti Anti-Sioniste or PAS) in upcoming elections. Dieudonne is known for his performances which routinely include Holocaust denial, praise for Adolf Hitler, Nazi salutes, slurs against the Talmud and other anti-Semitic language.

This is not Dieudonne’s first time running for political office. Most recently, he stood as a candidate for the European Parliament in 2009 with the Anti-Zionist Party, receiving 1.3% of the vote. According to its website, the Anti-Zionist Party’s primary goal is to remove the “Zionist intervention” from the public affairs of France.

Dieudonne, one of four PAS members running for Parliament, hopes to represent the city of Dreux, 50 miles west of Paris. The other PAS candidates are running in the 8th and 13th districts in the North as well as the 14th district in the Rhone region.

While Dieudonne has repeatedly been prosecuted for his racist and anti-Semitic performances and comments, none of his criminal convictions render his candidacy illegal. According to an article in the French edition of The Huffington Post, even if his campaign materials incite hatred or racial violence, the penalties would be significant (€45,000 fine and five years in prison) but would not make him ineligible for Parliament.

As a 501(c)(3) organization, ADL does not endorse or oppose candidates for office in the United States or abroad.

Anti-Semite Dieudonne’s Tour Cancelled in Montreal

Update: Dieudonne’s film, L’Antisémite, has been banned from the Cannes film festival for violating the festival’s policy of not “threatening public order or insulting religious beliefs.”

Four scheduled shows in Montreal by French comedian Dieudonne M’Bala M’Bala, whose act routinely includes Holocaust denial, praise for Adolf Hitler, Nazi salutes, slurs against the Talmud and other anti-Semitic language, were cancelled last week by Quebec’s largest concert promoter.

The cancelled shows were part of Dieudonne’s first attempt to seriously promote his first feature film L’Antisémite, released earlier this year, in North America. The film, reportedly funded in part by the Iranian government, makes no attempt to conceal its message. The film’s trailer shows Dieudonne declaring, “It’s clear the Jews control everything — media, finance, politics. We no longer have a choice,” before arriving to the apparent punch line, “we must exterminate them.” Another short clip from the film mocks the discovery of the gas chambers at Auschwitz, suggesting that they were a fabrication.



Dieudonne has been the subject of much controversy in Europe where he has been convicted of inciting hatred in France and is under investigation in Belgium for “inciting racial hatred and xenophobia” during a performance earlier this year. Additionally, Belgian authorities recently forced Dieudonne to cancel two shows in Brussels, and French police stopped Dieudonne mid-performance on May 9 for breaking local defamation laws.

In addition to his performances, Dieudonne makes his views known outside the context of his supposed comedy, including running for the European Parliament in 2009 with the Parti Anti Sioniste (the Anti-Zionist Party), which received 1.3% of the vote. According to the party’s website, its primary goals are to remove the “Zionist intervention” from the public affairs of France, denounce all politicians who advocate for Zionism, and to eradicate all forms of Zionism from France.

In April 2010, Dieudonne was interviewed on Iran’s English-language propaganda television station Press TV, where he claimed that Zionism has organized “all the wars and disorders on the planet.” He also argued that the stock market and the unemployment that resulted from its crash are part of the “Zionist project” and that Zionists manipulate the film industry using movies as Jewish propaganda.

Dieudonne, the son of a French mother and a Cameroonian father, is also notorious for a grotesque provocation in 2008 in which he had his assistant, dressed as a Jew in a concentration camp, present an award to Robert Faurisson, a serially convicted Holocaust denier, at a show at the Zenith Theater in Paris. Dieudonne was fined €10,000 for the incident, which was considered a “public insult of people of Jewish faith or origin.”

Saudi TV Launches Program Hosted By Anti-Semite



Salah Sultan on Masra Al Habeeb

Al-Risala, a Saudi-owned television channel with a history of promoting Islamist views, began airing a new weekly program last week hosted by anti-Semitic media personality Dr. Salah Sultan. The program, Masra Al Habeeb, was created to “provide practical steps on how to liberate Al-Aqsa,” according to Sultan.

During the first episode, which aired on May 9, Sultan commented about recent visits to Jerusalem by Muslim scholars. “We want to go as liberators and not as visitors under the shadow of occupation.” He further explained that those who want to support or visit Jerusalem should “announce that he is a supporter of fighting, Jihad and resistance... support the case for holy Jihad to liberate the prisoners, Al Aqsa and Palestine.”

The program also featured live call-ins from viewers, including several who used the platform to make anti-Semitic remarks. One caller from Egypt said:

“It will be impossible for the Jews, those sons of apes and pigs, no way... no way... that they can achieve their goal in building their alleged temple. Inshallah and God’s willing this will never happen. We will raise our young children, the seven year old ones, the five year old ones, and the four years old to fight the Jews and have war with the Jews.”

Sultan responded, “God willing.”

Later in the program, Sultan, head of the Jerusalem committee of the International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS), tried to reinterpret the Islamic texts which refer to the historical existence of the Jewish nation in Jerusalem, arguing that this was a short period that didn’t exceed 400 years.

In a promotional video for the program, Sultan is shown reciting a poem that says he shall return to Jerusalem with his rocket launcher. On the program’s Facebook page, Sultan posted a comment indicating that historically when the sons of Israel invade a city they burn it and kill its inhabitants, unlike the Egyptians who would not attack the city’s people.

During a session of the IUMS conference in Cairo on February 1, Sultan described the recent civil unrest and church bombings in Egypt as the “acts of Jews.” He also said, “God exposed [the Jews’] inner wickedness, exposed their secrets and they were made an example of to future nations.” Prior to Sultan’s speech at Al Azhar Islamic University, where the event is taking place, the crowd chanted: “To Jerusalem we are going as martyrs in millions.”

AQAP Bin Laden Tribute Focuses on Israel

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula’s media arm released an English-language booklet in tribute to Osama Bin Laden today titled “In Remembrance of Usama.” The material, which consists of a collection of quotes from the former Al Qaeda leader, largely focuses on Jews and Israel and how they, along with America, are at war with Islam.

“The Crusaders and the Jews joined together and invaded the home of Islam,” reads one of the Bin Laden quotes. “’Greater Israel’ which includes inside its borders large parts of Iraq, Egypt, a pass through Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, the entire Palestine and large parts of the haramain [Saudi Arabia].”

Some of the quotes are taken from poetry Bin Laden wrote about the Palestinians in which he promised the liberation of Jerusalem and praised the “purest of blood” of Palestinian “martyrs.” He exhorts Muslims that “your brothers in Palestine are eagerly awaiting. They are awaiting that you annihilate America and Israel.”

Bin Laden is also quoted calling on young Muslims to join jihad and target Americans and Jews by saying that “killing them throughout the globe is one of the greatest duties and leading righteous acts to Allah.” A quote in which he describes Jews as “those who fabricated lies against the Creator” is cited elsewhere in the booklet.

The publication was prepared ahead of the one year anniversary of the raid on Bin laden’s compound by American forces in Abbottabad. The editors, apparently the same team currently producing the English-language terrorist magazine Inspire, translated several messages from Bin Laden as “an eye-opener for those who aren’t yet familiar with the mujahideen’s cause.” They also praised him as a martyr, writing that it was “what he wish for… for the last three decade [sic].”

AQAP’s focus on Palestinians and Israel is also prevalent in the two most recent issues of Inspire magazine, released earlier in the month. The magazine compares events in Syria to “the Jewish treatment of the Palestinians.” One of the ads attacks Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, comparing him to Satan, and claiming that “they (the Jews) have the audacity to distort the word of Allah [parenthesis in the original].” Other messages in Inspire say, “Israel Can’t Hide” and call for attacks against Israeli targets as well as “Zionist and Zionist-friendly crusader media,” and “places where Jews are gathered, their leading personalities and institutions in Europe.”

Malik Ali at UC Irvine: “Zionism Corrupts You”

In a speech that veered from anti-Semitism to vast conspiracy theories and then back again, Amir Abdul Malik Ali used his platform at UC Irvine to rant about Zionism’s responsibility for the financial collapse, the alleged vilification of Islam and global corruption issues.

Throughout his talk, which took place this past Tuesday as part of the Muslim Student Union’s “Palestine Liberation Week,” Malik Ali sought to cast Zionism as the root of all evil, saying “One of the biggest deceits is that Zionism represents freedom, justice and equality when, in actuality, it represents the exact opposite, slavery, injustice and racism and inequality.”

While Malik Ali took care to use the word “Zionist” rather than “Jew,” he expressed that Zionism “has corrupted those Jews who believe in it” and “corrupts them to the core.” And, in what was undoubtedly the most anti-Semitic portion of his speech, Malik Ali claimed that the financial collapse was orchestrated by the “Zionists” in an effort to vilify Islam:

“The current financial crisis and collapse, the architects of it, are Zionists. Whether you’re talking about Greenspan or whether you’re talking about Geithner or whether you’re talking about Summers or whether you’re talking about Blankfein or whether you’re talking about Dimon. I’m saying Zionism corrupts you. Zionism corrupts you. These are not righteous Jews who are doing this. These are not righteous practitioners of the Jewish faith who are doing this. These are them who are mix[ing] injustice with their religion.”

[Two of the individuals referenced by Malik Ali – Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JP Morgan Chase, and Timothy Geithner, the Secretary of the Treasury – are actually not Jewish.]

                                                 
University of California President Mark Yudof was also described as a “Zionist Jew” who “supports the apartheid state of Israel.” Malik Ali claimed that President Yudof’s recent letter about tolerance on campus, which detailed incidents of anti-Jewish and anti-Israel harassment, “followed the media plan…in the media, you’re not allowed to show a Muslim or a Palestinian or an Arab or what have you from a sympathetic perspective.”

Malik Ali also cast blame on the American government and President Barack Obama, accusing Obama of “corrupting the Constitution” and conspiratorially alleging that he will win the 2012 election only because the “next theater of [military] operations is Africa. Black Africa…and they cannot have a white man in the White House bombing Black Africa.”

On the economic front, Malik Ali alleged that the government, the judiciary and the electoral process are “owned by corporations” and that politicians “bow down to the Zionists because of these material things.” He also repeatedly tried to connect the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Occupy Wall Street Movement, advising students that their mantra should be: “Anti-Zionist…Anti Empire…Anti 1%.”

During the Q&A session, a student in the audience shouted something about Israel being the national homeland of the Jewish people, to which Malik Ali responded that it is not the Jews’ homeland and that “ya’all came from Europe” and “you gotta go back.”

Malik Ali, who is affiliated with the anti-Semitic Sabiqun movement and is the imam of a mosque in Oakland, is regularly invited to speak on campuses in California. During his appearances at Irvine, Malik Ali has conspiratorially claimed that “Zionist Jews” were responsible for 9/11 and that they control the U.S. government, the economy and the media. He has referred to Jews and Zionists as “the new Nazis” and “the party of Satan.”

California Arabic Newspaper Says Israel Abuses Memory of Holocaust

The April 27 issue of Watan, an Anaheim, California-based Arabic-language newspaper, featured an article accusing Israel of intentionally using the memory and history of the Holocaust to mask Israeli crimes committed against the Palestinian people.

The article, “The ‘Holocaust’ Industry,” asks, “How could crimes against a group become a justification for that same group to commit crimes against another group?” Similarly, the article accuses “the Zionist entity” of committing the heinous crimes against the Palestinians all “in the shadows of celebrating the memory of the Holocaust through the last century.”

The Watan article also promotes the conspiratorial view that Israel’s purpose in preserving the memory of the Holocaust is to be able to use it as a tool “against politicians, intellectuals and others who dare to whisper opposition to Israeli policies,” a charge that has frequently been used by anti-Israel scholars, activists and organizations to stave off accusations of anti-Semitism.

Watan, which claims to have a circulation in California of 30,000, consistently prints anti-Semitic editorials and cartoons. The cartoons, originally published in the Arab press, have been internationally syndicated.

Another California-based community newspaper, Al Akhbar, published an article in March featuring anti-Semitic narratives and comparisons of Israeli policies to Nazi ideology.

Qaradawi Beats Drums Of War Against Israel in Friday Sermon

During his Friday sermon in the Qatari capital of Doha on April 27, radical Muslim Brotherhood cleric Sheikh Yusuf Al Qaradawi denied Israel’s right to exist and called on Arabs and Muslims to fight the Israelis.

“Israel thinks it’s settled on the land. And we say, by God, you Israelis shall never settle on our land. You will remain strangers, you will remain immigrants,” Qaradawi said. “They must…they must return to their countries, we believe in that, they cannot settle here….The Israelis will definitely disappear and get out of this country, and we are waiting for this day, we must prepare ourselves, and prepare our youth. We shall not surrender.”

After saying that the Palestinians “cannot fight alone” because “the Israelis have weapons enough to fight the entire Arabs,” he asked, “Why the Arabs are not fighting?...We call upon all to unite, to tell the Palestinians we are with you, the least to do is to say to the Palestinians we are behind you”

Qaradawi also expressed regret that while Muslims fail to support their Palestinian brothers, Jews from around the world strongly support Israel with money and weapons, and in politics and the media. “The Jews in the entire world, all of them, with the exception of a small group, support Israel.”

Qaradawi ended his sermon, which was broadcast live on Qatar’s official television station, by praying that God destroys the Israelis and enables the Palestinians to achieve victory “over the enemies of God and [the Palestinian’s] enemies.”