Sheila Musaji takes on a ludicrous article in Arutz Sheva that discusses the strange predictions and analysis of a billionaire religious Israeli businessman by the name of Moti Zisser. The article  on Zisser was authored by Gil Ronen who previously was hawking fabricated reports about Oslo Rapists all being Muslim. (h/t: Fred A.)

by Sheila Musaji (The American Muslim)

An article by Gil Ronen was just published in Arutz Sheva, Israel National News Europe Preparing Holocaust for Muslims.  This article discusses the predictions of Moti Zisser an Israeli businessman.  I looked up Moti Zisser, and he is a billionaire real-estate developer.  Here is the published article:

Well-known religious businessman Moti Zisser predicted Saturday evening that Europe will unleash a second Holocaust – but this time, the victims will be Muslims, not Jews.
“I think another Holocaust is brewing in Europe,” he told congregants at Bnei Brak’s Heichal Shlomo synagogue, according to Maariv-NRG. “I said it five years ago and everyone laughed at me. Today nobody is laughing; today they only argue with me over when it will happen.”

The entrepreneur, who has businesses in Israel as well as Poland and other European countries, explained that Muslims are increasingly gaining control of the European economy, and that the Europeans are bound to lash out at them. He said that he meets businessmen in Europe who ask him how he thinks the “Muslim problem can be solved.”

“I would give you numbers regarding what is happening with Muslims in Europe,” he said. “They control things that are in people’s pockets. It is much more painful than with the Jews, and for this they killed six million Jews, so for the other things they will kill 60 million too.”

“Don’t get this wrong,” he explained. “This continent knows full well where it is headed. Today there are cities in France with a Muslim majority that do not belong to the French. For those who don’t know, the city of Marseilles, for instance, belongs to the Arabs. The new demon in Europe is the Muslims, and it is being built up just like the Jewish demon was built up at the start of the previous century.”

“This new demon is being built in the way that Europe knows how to build and annihilate something when it is defending itself against it.”

Zisser added that in Europe’s eyes, Israel is an ally vis-à-vis the Muslim threat. That is why Israel need not be concerned about the European criticism of its policies in Jerusalem or elsewhere, he explained. On the contrary, he said, “If Israel knew how to take advantage” of the fact that it is perceived as an ally against the Muslims, “there is no doubt that this could give Israel great status in the big game in the next 50 or 100 years.”

What I get from this article is that Europe is feeling threatened by the Muslim presence, just as they once were by the Jewish presence.  The economy in Europe is in trouble, and just as with the Jews in the last century, Muslims are seen now as having too much control on the economy.  Anti-Muslim feeling is growing, and being actively promoted.  This could very easily lead to another holocaust.

BUT, and this last paragraph containing the big BUT deserves repeating:  In Europe’s eyes, Israel is an ally vis-à-vis the Muslim threat. That is why Israel need not be concerned about the European criticism of its policies in Jerusalem or elsewhere, he explained. On the contrary, he said, “If Israel knew how to take advantage” of the fact that it is perceived as an ally against the Muslims, “there is no doubt that this could give Israel great status in the big game in the next 50 or 100 years.

He seems to be saying that the Jews should ally themselves with the forces that are currently moving towards this new holocaust against the Muslims and in that way improve Israel’s position in the world after Muslims are murdered.  The author of this article is predicting a mass murder of Muslims, and suggesting that it might be a good thing for Israel.

Not one word in this article about how wrong any of this would be, not any concern about the victims of this possible holocaust against Muslims. No mention of NEVER AGAIN for anyone.  Simply a dispassionate prediction that this will probably happen and that Jews should take advantage of the situation.

The article has been picked up by many other Jewish newspapers, including the 5Towns paper in New York   This is the Jewish newspaper that back in 2008 published an article by Lawrence Kulak about which I wrote Jewish Newspaper Article Calls for Murder of Innocent Muslims in which I said:

… A few quotes from Mr. Kulak’s article:

“Moreover, the only way to deal with Islamic terrorists is the same way in which they deal with their victims. Muslims believe in the literal interpretation of the Biblical doctrine of an eye for an eye, and they do not have respect for anything perceived as a lesser standard of justice. They killed our innocents, and unless we kill theirs, they will go on killing ours.  The Torah, however, preaches a doctrine which, if implemented by the West, could finally put an end to all Islamic terror: If somebody is coming to kill you, rise up and kill him first.”

“Any and all collateral damage in the form of casualties to friends, relatives, or anyone connected to the lives of these terrorists should be swiftly ignored.”

It is surprising that a religious publication would carry an article calling for the deliberate killing of civilians as a form of collective punishment, especially since such actions are considered a war crime by International law.  It is even more surprising when the author claims as a matter of fact that pre-emptive warfare is taught in the Jewish Torah, and that collective punishment is a “common sense” solution “etched in the Mosaic law.”.

If such an article was published by Muslim extremists it is certain that there would be an uproar and demands that every Muslim organization (and even Muslim individual) condemn such a terrorist mentality.

The response so far to CAIR’s call for repudiation is silence for the most part.  In the blogsphere there are some rumblings, but mostly of the expected sort calling CAIR anti-Semitic for making such a call.

Larry Gordon, the editor of the 5 Towns Jewish Times published a response to CAIR’s request which is more of an attack on CAIR than any sort of apology.  The closest the response comes to an apology is the statement:  “The editorial staff of the Five Towns Jewish Times decries the notion of any support of terrorism, and we fully support the United States government’s War on Terrorism. As an Orthodox Jewish weekly, the 5TJT also rejects the demonization of Muslims, both in this country and abroad. If any such implication of supporting the terrorization or murder of innocent Muslims who do not support terrorists or terrorist activities was made by an article in the 5TJT, it was due simply to a poor choice of words—a slip of the author’s pen, if you will. Read in its entirety, the article is clearly conveying the message that members of a community that supports terrorists and allows them to remain in its midst should not expect to escape retaliation. At the same time, the 5TJT calls upon CAIR to unequivocally denounce all of its past and current support of and for Islamist terrorism, whether that support be direct or remote. We call upon CAIR to denounce Muslim killers who act in the name of Islam, and we call upon CAIR to denounce and call for a halt of the hatred of Jews and non-Muslims that many Muslims proclaim.”

They also published a defense of his original article by Lawrence Kulak:

Dear Editor, after seeing the disingenuous way that CAIR attacked me for writing my article “The Appropriate Response to Islamic Terror” published in last week’s paper, I am even more convinced of the validity of everything I wrote. In addition, I am also proud to have exposed the way that CAIR chooses to demonstrate its jihadist philosophy by taking the sentence to which it objected deliberately out of context in a typical attempt to fan the flames of hatred.

I never advocated the wanton killing of innocent Muslims, only that Muslim terror be treated the same as warfare, with similar regard for collateral damage. Because it seems as if this common-sense approach has been cowardly sidestepped by the West and Israel—to their severe detriment—there was the need to explain it in seemingly blunt language. If Muslims or CAIR are offended by the methods of Realpolitik which I advocate, let them complain to Muslim governments, such as Pakistan’s, who routinely violate international law by continuing to harbor terrorists and permitting terrorists to use civilians as human shields.

As far as my use of the concept of “an eye for an eye,” the utility of this device was proven in World War II against the Japanese, a civilization that also utilized suicide missions as a means of warfare. The Japanese government had been using poison gas against the Chinese, but when Roosevelt threatened to do the same to them, they abruptly terminated that practice. Unfortunately, it seems that Muslims today do not yield to pure threats as readily as the Japanese did.

Moreover, the Jewish religion does not advocate the killing of innocent civilians, but apparently Islam does. What about the verse in the Koran which states that when the Muslim messiah comes, the trees will tell Muslims to kill the Jews that are hiding behind them? So much for CAIR’s allegations.

The ADL did not issue a formal statement or press release, but did send a letter to the editor of the 5 Towns Jewish Times which stated:

To the Editor:  We were shocked by Lawrence Kulak’s suggestion that Jews should kill innocent Muslim civilians to counter Islamic terrorism (“The Appropriate Response to Islamic Terror,” Dec. 12).

Regardless of one’s views on terrorism, to even entertain the notion of responding in kind is morally reprehensible and appalling.  It is unfair to hold innocent Muslims responsible for the radical views of an extreme minority.  In the Jewish tradition, words have consequences.  In this case, Kulak’s words crossed the line.

Sincerely,
Anti-Defamation League

This is something, but not much for the only response to this article made by any Jewish organization.  The letter is not even signed by any individual at the ADL.

The problem is that CAIR was only the organization that raised the issue – they are not the only Muslims that are distressed -  and not only Muslims find this article reprehensible.  Those objecting to CAIR’s concerns are attacking the messenger, but that has nothing to do with the message, and no reasonable person could find fault with CAIR’s message that ‘Such inflammatory comments have no place in reasoned public discourse’.

The theologian, Martin Marty wrote about this in Sightings:

“The mimetic principle,” most developed by René Girard, today captures the attention of psychologists, literary critics, war-and-peace makers, and experts in many disciplines. It builds on the desires and behavior of humans who see something they and their rivals both want.  As they follow up, the price exacted by both keeps going up.  “Keeping up with the Joneses” is matched by build-ups of negative emotions, strategies and arms.  We see this in much of the conflict, including that related to religion, in the world today.

This is most visible among those who react to terrorists who are rooted in and related to Islamic groups. “They” take innocent lives, so “we” should do the same.”  We have seen that practice in Palestinian/Israeli acts of escalation and vengeance.  The question for some is: Should we make a principle out of the “mimetic principle” when dealing with civilians, innocents, mothers and children who are in the path of conflict?

One of the more explicit counsels for “us” to be indiscriminate in killing those who occupy the soil or live within the states in which Islamist terrorists are active, appeared in Five Towns Jewish Times (December 11).  Reproduction of and reports on it quickly spread, and within a day the Times had taken it off their web-site and blocked it on others.  Google “The Appropriate Response to Islamic Terror” and you will quickly find traces of it in its brief prime. We can be glad they took it down, but also can learn from what its author, Lawrence Kulak, wrote in this 20,000-circulation paper issuing from five towns in Nassau County, but aimed at all New York and reaching beyond it.

What is “The Appropriate Response to Islamic Terror?” Kulak uses the definite article as he offers “the solution to international terror”.  (The underlining is mine; the stress is his.)  “The only way to deal with Islamic terrorists is the same way in which they deal with their victims. Muslims believe in the literal interpretation of the Biblical doctrine of an eye for an eye…They killed our innocents, and unless we kill theirs, they will go on killing ours. The Torah, however, preaches a doctrine which…would finally put an end to all Islamic terror: if somebody is coming to kill you, rise up and kill him first.”

Kulak criticizes the U. S. presidential response to 9/11 which “labeled Islam a peaceful religion that had been hijacked by radical elements.”  The president thus “all but rejected the possibility of taking drastic action…”  Kulak is unsentimental in his “kill them all” approach: “Any and all collateral damage in the form of casualties to friends, relatives, or anyone connected to the lives of these terrorists should be swiftly ignored.  Public opinion and what is written in the newspapers should also be ignored by nations seeking to avenge the death of its innocent civilians.”

The problem of making a principle of this principle is that the rivals, enemies, counterparts, or counter-belligerents who read this kind of editorial–and read them they do–find occasion to raise the price, engage in more indiscriminate violence, and that, in turn inspires and impels us to raise it still higher and engage in ever more violence, “women and children” be damned–or at least thoughtlessly and painlessly annihilated.  We all know that in all wars, including those we call “just” or “good,” there are “collateral damages” and deaths of innocents.  However, making a principle out of doing so, and especially doing so on religious grounds, only invites more violence.  Then there are no eyes to trade for eyes, teeth to exact for teeth, while hatred and violence triumph.

(This article is not yet available online on Sightings, but can be found athttp://subrationedei.com/?p=859 )

As a participant in the recent Mosque Synagogue “Twinning” I remain hopeful that Muslim and Jewish Americans can come together and act as a bridge to help heal the wounds caused by anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.  To do this both communities will need to speak out against those who are determined to continue to spew hatred and bigotry.

It seems that there are still some individuals in the Jewish community who are more concerned with political expediency than with Judaism.  (Just as there are some in the Muslim community that are more concerned with political expediency than with Islam.)  Another example of this same reasoning was a July 2010 article on David Horowitz’s News Real Blog by Jeanette Pryor titled It’s Time to Put the Coffee Down and Eradicate Islam in the West. This article included the passage “It’s time to join the war, not on “terror” (that oh-so soothing illusion,) but on Islam in the West. Most urgently, we must defend Israel as the frontline in the war against the spread of Islam.”

Read the rest…

Walid Shoebat

Sadly Walid Shoebat is still duping and conning crowds across the USA while at the same time lining his pockets with their money.

There is no reason why organizations, churches, synagogues and Holocaust Museums should be inviting characters such as Walid Shoebat as “featured” speakers. Ignorance of the special kind of liar Shoebat is, is no longer a valid excuse as there has been a plethora of exposes on Shoebat, both in the blogosphere and  in the mainstream media. Even Islamophobes are repulsed by the snake-oil salesman technique Shoebat has been using to his advantage.

Now it seems the Mazal Holocaust Library has either willfully or ignorantly fallen for the “ex-Terrorist” bait:

Walid Shoebat to speak at Holocaust Museum

It is our duty as loonwatchers to make sure that people who are supposed to safeguard the memory of one of the most evil atrocities ever committed by man against man are not steered into the abyss of Islamophobia, xenophobia and hate represented by the likes of a Walid Shoebat.

I encourage you all to contact the Holocaust library and inform them of the grave mistake they are making.

Here I will reproduce JD’s comment which first alerted us to this travesty:

I think we all should Phone and email them and let them know what they did was a disgrace to the memory of the people who died in the Holocaust since Shoebat has said stuff like…

“many parallels between the Antichrist and Islam” and “Islam is not the religion of God — Islam is the devil”

According to an official who attended a similar Shoebat lecture at a conference in Las Vegas, the solution he offered for the threat of “militant Muslims” was to “Kill them…including the children.”

Sounds little bit like what they said 1930′s about another group right Texas Holocaust Library?

Please email them at :aimee@mazal-library.org
Phone:
Number on Flyer: (210)-392-5452
Mazal Holocaust Library -(210) 377-2742

Also see: Walid Shoebat Exposed.

Yehuda Bauer

An important insight into Israeli society.

Yehuda Bauer: Israel’s genocidal nationalists

(AlJazeera English)

Muslim Savior of Holocaust Jews

CAIRO – Delving into untold stories of the Holocaust, a new film is shedding the light on heroism of Muslims who risked their lives to rescue Jews from the Nazi brutality.

“This film is an event,” Benjamin Stora, France’s pre-eminent historian on North Africa, told The New York Times.

“Much has been written about Muslim collaboration with the Nazis. But it has not been widely known that Muslims helped Jews.”

The film, “Free Man”, traces the heroism of the founder of the Grand Mosque of Paris in saving Jews from the Nazis.

It tells the story of Algerian-born Kaddour Benghabrit who rescued Jews in France from the Nazi brutality.

Benghabrit provided shelter and Muslim identification documents to scores of Jews to help them escape arrest by Nazi troops.

He also used the Grand Mosque of Paris to shelter more than 100 Jews from persecution.

Despite hiding Jews inside, Benghabrit used to give mosque tours to German officers and their wives to deceive them.

The movie premiered this week in France after four years of travel and research. It is also to be released in the Netherlands, Switzerland and Belgium.

According to Encyclopedia Britannica, the Holocaust refers to “systematic state-sponsored killing of Jewish men, women, and children and others by Nazi Germany and its collaborators during World War II.”

The commonly used figure for the number of Jewish victims is six million.

But the figure has been questioned by many European historians and intellectuals, chiefly French author Roger Garaudy.

Muslim Heroes

Stora says that there are many untold stories about Muslim heroism to save Jews from the Nazis.

“There are still stories to be told, to be written,” he said.

Director Ismael Ferroukhi says that he encountered many stories about Muslim heroism during the film making.

One account came from Albert Assouline, a North African Jew who escaped from a German prison camp.

Assouline said that more than 1,700 resistance fighters, including Jews, found refuge in the mosque’s underground caverns, and that the imam provided many Jews with certificates of Muslim identity.

The film comes almost five years after Robert Satloff, director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, revealed in his 2006 book, “Among the Righteous,” stories of Arabs who saved Jews during the Holocaust.

The book included a chapter on the Grand Mosque of Paris.

“One has to separate the myth from the fact,” Satloff told The New York Times.

“The number of Jews protected by the mosque was probably in the dozens, not the hundreds,” he said.

“But it is a story that carries a powerful political message and deserves to be told.”

Satloff recalled a 1940 Foreign Ministry document shown to him by the current mosque rector Dalil Boubakeur about the Nazi suspicions of the mosque’s role in sheltering Jews.

“The chief imam was summoned, in a threatening manner, to put an end to all such practices,” the document says.

The mosque’s role in sheltering Jews from the Nazis was explored by a television documentary tilted “A Forgotten Resistance: The Mosque of Paris” in 1991.

Another children’s book “The Grand Mosque of Paris: A Story of How Muslims Saved Jews During the Holocaust,” published in 2007, also highlighted the mosque’s role.

Ferroukhi, the director, urges the France government to take the film about the Muslim heroism to schools.

“It pays homage to the people of our history who have been invisible,” he said.

“It shows another reality, that Muslims and Jews existed in peace. We have to remember that — with pride.”

by Farha Khaled

Gates of Vienna the notorious white supremacist blog which published Fjordman and inspired Anders Brievik, recently published a three part essay which calls for the Holocaust of Muslims.

This is the same far right cesspool-of-bigotry-website notorious for publishing Pedar Jensen who vented his Islamophobia for many years under the pen name of Fjordman, and who has now gone into hiding after being interviewed by Norwegian police over the Anders Breivik massacre. Gates of Vienna is run by a couple in the USA, one Baron Bodissey whose real name is thought to be ‘Ned May’ and a woman calling herself Dymphna.

This is not first time Gates of Vienna has published screeds supposedly written by other anonymous contributors calling for the genocide of Muslims. A few years back a similar lovingly written piece inciting for the genocide of Muslims was published as Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs noted in Gates of Vienna Toys with Genocide:

‘If violence does erupt in European countries between natives and Muslims, I consider it highly likely that people who had never done anything more violent than beat eggs will prove incapable of managing the psychological transition to controlled violence and start killing anything that looks remotely Muslim. Our unspoken conviction that we, in 21st-century Europe, ‘

On 20th September 2011,  Dymphna Of Gates of Vienna posted a three part series by one Zenster with the introduction:

 This is the first of a three part essay dealing with Islamic terrorism and what can be expected regarding Islam’s ultimate fate.

Moving on to Part 1, titled  ‘When Will It End?’ the essay begins by setting the tone with:

‘Short answer ― It will end when the tipping point is reached. This tipping point can be defined as follows:

When living with Muslims becomes more trouble than living without Muslims.‘

A long rambling justification about the costs of policing airlines from terrorists, and how that money could be better spent on fighting aids and other social ills follows, in an obvious attempt to find some sort of moral justification as to why there is no other way. It ends  with the ominous warning ‘The tipping point is approaching swiftly’

Part two of the essay has the presumptuous title Why it will End? and answers the question by stating ‘Islam has “unhappy ending” written all over it’ before going on to elaborate with hyperbole and lies including one manufactured on Gates of Vienna by Fjordman:

‘Throughout Europe, Muslims are disproportionately represented in rape, violent crime and imprisonment statistics. The expense of this criminality reaches into extra billions of Euros per year and does not cover property damage, victim rehabilitation and other ancillary expenses. Nor does this speak to the same criminal practices and consequences resulting from ostensibly legal immigration into Europe by tens of millions of Muslims over the past few decades.’

The rapes statistics in Scandinavia that Fjordman published at Gates of Vienna which were then repeated on the Islamophobic blogosphere were proven to be lies. Zenster continues his mental masturbation:

The reputation of Muslims as predatory criminals and intensely parasitic occupiers all combines into a damning indictment of Islam. Its presence on earth only promises increased conflict, more atrocities, new genocides and unwarranted diversions of wealth that could better serve far more deserving causes. Finally, Islam is assembling too many enemies too fast to where they cannot be expected to keep pursuing their own petty quarrels instead of addressing the overarching threat of jihad. The complete and total inability of Islam to coexist with any legitimate faith or other culture presages a day when its numerous victims will band together in pursuit of an ultimate victory.

That is why it will end.

In the concluding Part three, How it will End? Zenster sums it up briefly: ‘The Muslim holocaust.‘ He then continues exhibiting more megalomania and what clearly appears to be a projection of his own fantasies:

‘Suffused with delusions of adequacy, Muslims think nothing of constantly antagonizing Western powers who long ago perfected industrialized warfare to an extent that Islam can only dream of, despite its supremacist fantasies.’

This could explain why the far right white supremacists see Israel as an ally. They see Israel as doing their dirty work for them, and as if on cue Zenster trots out the Samson option:

‘Neither is this the end of it. Iran’s reckless pursuit of genocide against the Jews could precipitate the Muslim holocaust all by itself. Little known to most people is Israel’s Samson Option. If true, the Jewish state has quietly informed its Arab neighbours that a single WMD strike against Israel will result in the entire MME (Muslim Middle East) being incinerated in nuclear plasma. Hundreds of fusion warheads along with newly acquired Dolphin class submarines and cruise missiles back this up.’

Contradictions galore! Elsewhere in this three part essay the author talks of the plot to establish the world Caliphate, but here he says he is convinced it won’t come about. Freudian slip? :

‘Now, consider how America rolled up Iraq’s sidewalks in two weeks. This is the “reality gap” confronting Islam and its delusory vision of world domination. No such thing will ever happen.’

More ramblings, perhaps to justify his own dreams of nuclear warfare

‘It is more than safe to say that an industrially and militarily unlettered Islam is not going to take over the world using such a feeble tool as terrorism. As was also noted in Part II, Islam is assembling too many enemies too fast and that pace far outstrips any ability of theirs to perfect the mass production of intricate nuclear weapons nor muster fighting forces of even marginal proficiency. Chronic overreach is a hallmark of Islam and its habit of poking at the Western nuclear dragon with its terrorist pointed wooden stick bodes especially unwell for Muslims everywhere.’

The essay is full of dire warnings, rants about liberals who are complicit in Islamising the planet, of the political establishment for being too weak, but more gravely, it even condemns the ‘counter jihad’ movement for not calling for a ‘solution’ and for being too soft.

When you hear of so called ‘counter jihadis’ accused of being ‘soft’ and the whole of western civilization embroiled in a plot whose aim it is to – err- destroy themselves – it is safe to assume you are reading from someone not quite right in the head, to put it politely. Someone who doesn’t deserve a second thought and should ordinarily be dismissed as a raving loon. Except that it was at this very website, where a writer with the same Islamophobic rhetoric inspired a loner to kill tens of children on a holiday island!

Farha Khaled is a columnist for the Saudi based Arab News.

http://farhakhaled.blogspot.com  http://twitter.com/farhakhaled

Does a Holocaust survivor have the right to speak his mind and say ‘what happened to me during the Holocaust, I see it happening again to Palestinians, Never Again for Anyone.’ Should he be labeled an anti-Semite for such statements?

Holocaust survivor’s planned talk at mosque angers Sacramento Jewish leaders

By Stephen Magagnini

(Sacremento Bee)

Sacramento’s carefully cultivated interfaith bonds are being stretched to the limit by an 86-year-old Holocaust survivor who is scheduled to speak at a local mosque about the Nazi Holocaust and Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.

Auschwitz survivor Hajo Meyer makes the 11th stop on his national “Never Again for Anyone” tour at the Sacramento League of Associated Muslims Islamic Center at 7 p.m. tonight.

Meyer has equated the Holocaust to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories, drawing intense fire from Sacramento’s Jewish community and the Anti-Defamation League.

“Comparing Israel to Nazi Germany is repugnant, anti-Semitic and defiles the sacred memory of millions who perished during the Holocaust,” said Rabbi Reuven H. Taff, president of the 13-member Board of Rabbis of Greater Sacramento, in a civil but emotional exchange of letters with SALAM’s Imam Mohamed Abdul Azeez.

The Board of Rabbis praised Azeez for his bridge-building with other communities of faith, but asked him to either boycott the event or stop it from happening at SALAM. If he doesn’t, Taff said in a letter to him, “then all the good work you are doing to foster relations with the interfaith community will be severely undermined.”

“The event is not going to be canceled,” said Azeez, who encouraged “any of our friends in the Jewish community to attend, ask questions and engage the speakers.”

Azeez noted that eight national organizations and nine local organizations are sponsoring it, including the Florin Japanese American Citizens League and the local chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace.

Azeez said that a member of American Muslims for Palestine reserved the hall and the event is not sponsored by SALAM. He said SALAM’s board investigated the speakers, who in addition to Meyer include UC Berkeley political scientist Hatem Bazian, a Palestinian American.

“You have a Holocaust survivor talking for the first time to the Muslim community about the Holocaust and putting it in a modern context that the rights of all people should be respected,” Azeez said. “The world is changing, and it’s time for us to have more dialogue about these untouchable idols,” such as the Israeli treatment of Palestinians.

Azeez agrees that the rabbis raise a legitimate concern – “any attempt to equate the Holocaust with what is happening in Palestine is an atrocity.”

Azeez said SALAM’s management will not allow the speakers to compare Israel to the Nazis.

But Taff said Meyer’s views are intolerable to the Jewish community, and added that the rabbis could produce Holocaust survivors to talk to Muslim Americans without inciting Muslim-Jewish hostility.

Rabbi Nancy Wechsler-Azen of Congregation Beth Shalom said Meyer’s speeches and writings are “most offensive – the program promotes hate. It’s an attempt to de-legitimize Israel and Judaism, as opposed to having a meaningful discussion over a political policy.”

Wechsler-Azen said the event isn’t the way to heal people “who have such profound wounds between them … we have forged a very meaningful relation with SALAM, and we’re heartsick about this.”

Meyer, in an exclusive interview with The Bee, said he survived 12 years under Hitler and 10 months in Auschwitz.

“I have a number on my arm and they dare to call me an anti-Semite?” he said.

Because he was not allowed to attend high school in Nazi Germany, Meyer said, “I can identify with those Palestinians who undergo slow-motion genocide when they are not allowed to go to their schools,” which have been bombed.

“Nearly all Jewish religious organizations in the world have mixed up Judaism – which is universal, humanistic and friendly to anybody – with Zionism,” said Meyer, who defined Zionism as an ideology based on a well-defined Arab enemy that must be destroyed.

Jon Fish, president of Sacramento’s Interfaith Service Bureau representing major faiths in the region, said Palestine is a social issue, not a religious one.

“The rabbi and the imam have to work it out,” Fish said, “But this might be a no-win situation.”

Taff said he welcomes a discussion between Jews and Muslims “in an atmosphere of collegiality and respect.” But if SALAM hosts an event that Taff believes is “clearly anti-Semitic,” he said, “it makes it very difficult to sit down at the same table with anyone who supports or endorses a program of hate.”

Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/2011/02/16/3406350/holocaust-survivors-planned-talk.html#ixzz1EEagFbNE

Albanian Muslims saved over 2,000 Jews during World War II and Albania was the only Nazi-occupied European country that had more Jews in it than before the War began and now Temple Emmanuel in St. Louis is doing an exhibition on it. (hat tip: Daniel Bartholomew)

Try telling this to Holocaust revisionist and sacred memory blasphemer Pamela Geller, who in an act of insanity has blamed Muslims for the Holocaust, saying “the Nazis adopted Jihad” and that the Mufti of Jerusalem was the prime mover and influencer of Hitler.

Albanian Muslims risk their own lives to save Jews from Nazis during World War II

By Leisa Zigman

Creve Coeur, MO (KSDK) — With rising anti-Muslim sentiment across the country, an untold story is raising greater awareness about the Muslim faith and the teachings of the Quran. That awareness comes from an unlikely source: a small Jewish congregation in Creve Coeur.

Temple Emanuel is premiering a groundbreaking exhibit of photos that reveals Albanian Muslims who saved 2,000 Jews during World War II.

It’s a story you’ve likely never heard. It is a story told through the faces of Albanian Muslims who risked their own lives to live by a code of faith and honor called Besa.

Dr. Ghazala Hayat is a neurologist at St. Louis University and serves as spokesperson for the Islamic Foundation of Greater Saint Louis.

Hayat said while Besa is an Albanian word, it is part of Islamic culture and teachings. According to Dr. Hayat, Besa is an ancient code which requires people to endanger their own lives if necessary to save the life of anyone seeking asylum. To this day, Besa is the highest moral law of the region, superseding religious differences, blood feuds, and even tribal traditions.

The exhibit is opening eyes throughout the world.

“You don’t have to share the same faith. You have to respect each other’s faith,” Hayat said.

Pictures of the Albanian Muslims in the exhibit tell a lifetime of stories. As a young mother, one woman did not have enough breast milk to feed her son. A Jewish woman she hid nursed him instead. She was asked if she minded that a Jewish mother had fed her baby.

“Jews are God’s people like us,” the woman said.

Another man who also hid Jewish families said, “I did nothing special. All Jews are our brothers.”

And the head of the Bektashi sect, with more than seven million followers, tells the story of Albania’s prime minister, who gave a secret order during the Nazi occupation.

“All Jewish children will sleep with your children, all will eat the same food, and all will live as one family,” the order read.

In post-war Europe, it is said Albania was the only Nazi-occupied country to boast a greater number of Jews than before the Holocaust.

“They were among the people who at great personal risk sheltered Jews and protected them in their homes and did so out of a religious obligation,” said Rabbi Justin Kerber, Temple Emanuel.

The Islamic Foundation of Greater St. Louis and several local Jewish agencies hope the St. Louis community will experience this rare look at the role Albanian Muslims played in sheltering Jews from the Nazis.

“At this time of tension over Islam in America, there is so much more to understanding Islam,” Rabbi Kerber said.

The BESA exhibition at Temple Emanuel is October 21- December 1, 2010
12166 Conway Road
Thursday 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Saturdays and Sundays, 12 p.m. to 4pm and by appointment

For more information, contact Gail at gail@testl.org or call 314-432-5877.

A good article from Rabbi Yoffie. He discusses why the analogy of the nuns at Auschwitz doesn’t comport with the mosque near Ground Zero.

Auschwitz and the Mosque Near Ground Zero: The Problems with This Analogy

Jewish Americans have generally been more supportive of the Cordoba House project than other Americans. Jews have been denied religious freedom and been the victims of religious discrimination so frequently that their natural sympathies lie with others who now confront these burdens. Nonetheless, even those most firmly committed to building the community center/mosque in lower Manhattan have struggled with the seemingly powerful argument that what happened at Auschwitz in the 1980s is a reason to rethink their position.

This argument goes as follows: A group of Carmelite nuns attempted to establish a convent on the grounds of Auschwitz in the mid-1980s. Pope John Paul II was sensitive to the concerns of Jews, who saw Auschwitz as sacred ground and the convent as an attempt to obscure the memory of the Jewish slaughter that happened there. In 1989, the Pope ordered the Polish nuns off the grounds of Auschwitz to a different location. Therefore, Imam Feisal Rauf should demonstrate similar sensitivity and move the Cordoba House from its current site.

There are two problems with this argument.

The first is that all Holocaust analogies are profoundly suspect. The Holocaust, with Auschwitz as its central symbol, was an endeavor of pure evil, involving a fanatic, obsessive, and single-minded six-year campaign to exterminate an entire people. Words fail us in attempting to describe or explain the Holocaust. We Jews, therefore, rightly discourage others from making comparisons that must ultimately fall short. The Holocaust is analogous to nothing because it is utterly unique.

The second problem is that if there is a lesson to be learned from John Paul’s actions, it is exactly the opposite of what Cordoba House opponents are now claiming.

I agree that Ground Zero is a sacred place. It is a mass grave, the site of a terrible atrocity. One can reasonably argue that anything that detracts from the memory and the message of the site is out of place there, and that a mosque — or any place of worship — might do that.

But that is where the similarities end. The Jewish community was outraged in the 1980s because the convent was located on the grounds of Auschwitz. At the request of the Pope, the convent was then moved to another building across the street, off the grounds but only 600 yards away. The Jewish community was grateful to the Pope for his actions. Jews saw nothing problematic about the convent being only a third of a mile from Auschwitz. What was important was that it was no longer on the grounds of the camp that had been the place of an unprecedented and unthinkable slaughter of Jews.

The Cordoba House, of course, was never to be located at Ground Zero. It is to be two and a half blocks away — close by, but still at a respectable distance, as in the case of the convent after the move, and not only that, in a highly congested urban neighborhood where its presence will be barely noticeable. Just as the Jewish community had no problem with a Carmelite convent that was so close to Auschwitz, so too should it have no problem with a community center/mosque that is so close to Ground Zero. If moving the convent a short distance from the death camp was seen as a step to be applauded, why should a community center/mosque a short distance from Ground Zero be seen as troubling?

For Jews, emotions run deep on the Holocaust, which is burned into our consciousness. But we must not let these emotions be exploited. Twenty years ago, by a short move from sacred ground to secular territory, the dispute over the convent at Auschwitz was resolved. Common sense and a spirit of mutual understanding triumphed. In dealing with plans for Cordoba House, to be constructed in a busy and very worldly section of downtown New York, let us hope that they will triumph once again.

We don’t want to make big hay over errors even from the likes of Robert Spencer, the pseudo-Scholar who swears he is “never wrong.” We just like to take a hammer to those assumptions being parlayed as facts and reduce them to rubble. Loonwatch, over and over again has done just that to Spencer’s work and we will continue to do it until Spencer acknowledges his folly.

We wrote a piece on one more instance of Robert Spencer getting basic information wrong and then trying to pass it off as fact. He claimed Pope Pius XII was a victim of misinformation and that he was in fact “memorialized in Yad Veshem.” Tipped by one of our readers we pointed out the easy to find out fact that Pius XII was not memorialized in Yad Vashem, in fact he has constantly been rejected.

Spencer, originally wrote:

The record of Pope Pius XII is controversial, but there has been a good deal of misinformation publicized about it. In reality, he helped save many hundreds of thousands of Jews and was memorialized at Yad Veshem.

(Click here for a snapshot of the original comment by Spencer)

One of Spencer’s readers, Raqnu, who the JihadWatchers figured was a Muslim Taqqiyah artist because his name is an anagram for Quran (only problem is it also seems to be a name for the Spirit of Justice in the Zend Avesta) asked Spencer what he thought about our claim. Spencer replied,

As far as I know Pius XII is not honored at Yad Veshem.

(Click here for a snapshot of the reply to Raqnu from Spencer)

A clear contradiction to his early comment. Yet, Spencer doesn’t have the guts to acknowledge his mistake and he especially is not going to acknowledge a mistake when it is pointed out to him by Loonwatch. C’mon Spencer where is our hat tip?

Interestingly, Spencer went back to his original comment, and without telling anyone changed what he had written, so instead of saying,

The record of Pope Pius XII is controversial, but there has been a good deal of misinformation publicized about it. In reality, he helped save many hundreds of thousands of Jews and was memorialized at Yad Veshem.

It now says,

The record of Pope Pius XII is controversial, but there has been a good deal of misinformation publicized about it. In reality, he helped save many hundreds of thousands of Jews. The campaign to blacken his name began much later.

(Click here for a snapshot of Spencer’s quiet attempt at covering up his error)

Not a word about how he was propelled by Loonwatch’s article to change his comment. Not even a disclaimer signifying “Update” as most professional bloggers would react in this scenario. Instead, Robert Spencer keeps trudging along hoping no one will notice his error. To do so would concede that he is wrong, and that would bruise his fragile ego. More worrisome for him, it would open up the door in his and his minions’ brains (if it already hasn’t) that maybe Loonwatch is right about his other arguments.

For a paid polemicist that is a scary proposition.

This is still my favorite picture of Robert Spencer.

A while back Danios wrote one of his most popular pieces debunking Robert Spencer’s work. It dealt with a chapter from Spencer’s, Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam and was titled The Church’s Doctrine of Perpetual Servitude. Spencer wrote a reply that basically skirted around the subject and in effect dug himself into a bigger hole then he was in previously. Danios replied to Spencer who has remained mum on the debate since then, essentially conceding to Danios and Loonwatch.

One of our readers, Paterfamilias, wrote to inform us that Spencer’s reply contained more factual errors. Spencer claimed that Pope Pius XII, though “controversial” was “memorialized at Yad Vashem.”

The record of Pope Pius XII is controversial, but there has been a good deal of misinformation publicized about it. In reality, he helped save many hundreds of thousands of Jews and was memorialized at Yad Veshem.

Oh really, a lot of misinformation? So much for Robert Spencer’s research abilities. He could have easily done a Google search to check the veracity of such a claim, but for a paid polemicist with an ax to grind it’s probably considered a waste of time.

The following article, Pope Pius XII and Yad Vashem, from Wikipedia makes it clear that not only is Pope Pius XII not memorialized at Yad Vashem, his candidacy has been repeatedly rejected for decades.

Yad Vashem, the state of Israel‘s official Holocaust memorial, has generally been critical of Pope Pius XII, the pope during The Holocaust. For decades, Pius XII has been nominated unsuccessfully for recognition as Righteous Among the Nations, an honor Yad Vashem confers on non-Jews who saved Jewish lives during the Holocaust altruistically and at risk to their own lives.

Yad Vashem affixes the following captions to two pictures of Pius XII in both English and Hebrew,

In 1933, when he was Secretary of the Vatican State, he was active in obtaining a Concordat with the German regime to preserve the Church’s rights in Germany, even if this meant recognizing the Nazi racist regime. When he was elected Pope in 1939, he shelved a letter against racism and anti-Semitism that his predecessor had prepared. Even when reports about the murder of Jews reached the Vatican, the Pope did not protest either verbally or in writing. In December 1942, he abstained from signing the Allied declaration condemning the extermination of the Jews. When Jews were deported from Rome to Auschwitz, the Pope did not intervene. The Pope maintained his neutral position throughout the war, with the exception of appeals to the rulers of Hungary and Slovakia towards its end. His silence and the absence of guidelines obliged Churchmen throughout Europe to decide on their own how to react.

Pretty damning stuff.

Yad Vashem’s official website has this to say about Pope Pius XII,

The controversy about Pius XII and the Holocaust is still open. At the end of his visit to Israel in 1964, Pope Paul VI came to Pius’s defense in Jerusalem. On March 12, 1979, Pope John Paul II met with Jewish leaders in Rome and said: “I am happy to evoke in your presence today the dedicated and effective work of my predecessor Pius XII on behalf of the Jewish people.” In a meeting with American Jewish leaders in September 1987 in Miami, John Paul II again recalled the positive attitude of Pius XII. However, his passivity in the face of the Holocaust remains a controversial subject.

How could Robert Spencer get a fact so brutally wrong? Maybe one day Yad Vashem will find Pope Pius XII legitimate for memorializing, but as of now the controversy surrounding his actions and inaction during the Holocaust continue to make the attempts of various Pope’s and advocates unsuccessful.

Robert Spencer should think twice before undertaking a task of disinformation, it just doesn’t fly anymore.