ALERT

Urging EU to Follow Obama’s Lead and Skip Durban

“The biggest Jewish body in the United States on Sunday lauded the decision of the Obama administration not to participate in a United Nations anti-racism summit which it fears will be used as a forum to criticize Israel.” Read more

Original Materials Expose Lie of Israeli Apartheid Charge

“(Los Angeles) — StandWithUs, the international Israel education organization, has just distributed tens of thousands of fact-based, well-designed materials to students who requested help countering the latest anti-Israel campaign on campus: Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW). This 5th annual IAW, scheduled for March 1-8th at campuses worldwide, threatens to be bigger and more hate-filled than its predecessors. It will be especially ugly on European campuses, where incidents of anti-Israel, anti-Semitic agitation are escalating.” Read more

History as a Beast that Is Loose Again

Writing about the world economic crisis, Richard Cohen in the Washington Post speaks of a generational respite from history being over, History, like an animal escaped from the zoo, is again out of its cage. He illustrates his point with references to Stefan Zweig a European Jewish author in the first half of the last century. Even without the reference, Cohen’s words lend themselves to the inference that history is roaring back for Jews, a people for whom economic instability has always held a unique danger.

Mumbai Charges Reveal New Details of Plot

“Parts of the charge sheet, reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, showed fresh details of the attacks and how they were planned using relatively sophisticated technology and global connections.” Read more

Jewish Banker Sets Heartfelt Tone for Obama Speech

“Obama’s salute to Leonard Abess in his state of the nation speech Tuesday was likely to bring a dose of pride to a community that has been unnerved by the 24/7 coverage of another Jewish banker, Bernie Madoff, and allegations of Madoff’’s robbing from the poor (and the wealthy) to keep himself rich.” Read more

FBI Chief on Preventing Radicalization in Ethnic Groups

“Mr. Mueller said during a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations that the bureau must redouble our efforts in building relationships with communities whose members may become radicalized.” Read more

Kissinger on a U.S. Strategy for Afghanistan

“The Obama administration faces dilemmas familiar to several of its predecessors. America cannot withdraw from Afghanistan now, but neither can it sustain the strategy that brought us to this point.” Read more

FBI Director Warns of Terror Attacks on U.S. Cities

“FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III today warned that extremists with large agendas and little money can use rudimentary weapons to sow terror, raising the specter that recent attacks in Mumbai that killed 170 people last year could embolden terrorists seeking to attack U.S. cities.” Read more

ADL Director on Combating Global Pandemic of anti-Semitism

“. . .there is at least a sliver of hope that these challenges can be met, that there is a willingness and a commitment by some in the international community who are ready to stand up and say no to anti-Semitism, and to put up a united front against bigotry and hatred. . . More than 120 lawmakers from more than 40 nations spanning the globe came together to devise an effective framework and forge new strategies to confront anti-Semitism on a global scale. . .This is the good news in an otherwise bleak picture, one that I fear is only going to get bleaker as world Diaspora Jewry faces this new threat.

“This is the worst, the most intense, the most global hatred aimed at Jews in most of our memories. When was the last time we can remember Jews being beaten in the street, as happened in the United Kingdom, where 220 incidents were reported during the three weeks of Israel’s military operation, an eight-fold increase compared to the same period a year ago?”

“Today, the sense of urgency has never been greater. We are fortunate to have a commitment from some leaders, those who gathered in London and others who have taken the time to understand the nature of the threat. From this I hope will come government action to put a damper on anti-Semitism.” Read more

Winslet, ‘Waltz’ and How Hollywood Likes Its Jews

“My wife, the child of Auschwitz survivors, saw it right off, even in the dark. Even before they announced the winner of the Best Actress award. Against a well-deserved paean to eventual winner Kate Winslet, a giant screen showed hunted, gaunt, clearly doomed figures. This is how Hollywood likes its Jews, my wife said. Hunched over and dressed in rags. . .

“. . . as if to underscore the Hollywood principle that Jewish history ended in the Holocaust, and Israeli history ended with Exodus, the Oscar ceremony enlisted Liam Neeson - star of the ultimate Hollywood version of the Good Christian-Bad Holocaust epic, Schindler’s List - to deny the Oscar to a film showing Jews not as they may have been, but as they, in fact are.” Read more

EU Jewish Leader: Anti-Semitism Spurred by Economic, Not Gaza War

“The leader of the European Jewish Congress said Wednesday the main blame for growing anti-Semitism across the continent was the economic crisis, not the Gaza war.  Moshe Kantor said that what he believes to be anti-Semitism levels unseen since World War II had nothing to do with Middle East issues.” Read more

Phyllis Chesler: Honor Killings Are Not Simply Domestic Violence

“When a husband murders a wife or daughter in the United States and Canada, too often law enforcement chalks the matter up to domestic violence. Murder is murder; religion is irrelevant. Honor killings are, however, distinct from wife battering and child abuse. Analysis of more than fifty reported honor killings shows they differ significantly from more common domestic violence.[1] The frequent argument made by Muslim advocacy organizations that honor killings have nothing to do with Islam and that it is discriminatory to differentiate between honor killings and domestic violence is wrong.” Read more

Dershowitz:  Divest from Divester

“It may well be that the anti-Israel student group has hijacked the voice of the college, but if so the hijacking has not been strongly resisted. The voice of the student group has become the voice of the college because it has been clearer and less ambiguous.

My son, who went to Hampshire College, has urged me to take this action. We have supported the college through tuition payments and occasional gifts. No more! I now call on all decent people-supporters and critics of Israel alike-to make no further contributions to a school that now promotes discrimination and is complicit in evil. There must be a price paid for bigotry, and the actions of Hampshire College in singling out only Israel for divestiture is bigotry plain and simple. Silence is not an option. Inaction is not an option. Fighting back against the likes of Cynthia McKinney is mandatory for all people of good will.” Read more

Taliban Threats Reach NY from Pakistan

“Though every community of exiles from a conflict-ridden country suffers when relatives who remain behind are caught in the fight, the immigrants from Swat also bear the burden of believing that their presence in America is endangering their relatives back home, where the Taliban have imposed their authority over vast swaths of the region, about 100 miles northwest of Islamabad.” Read more

Geert Wilders: A Test for Western Civilization

“…a defense of Mr. Wilders is made a lot easier if one can point to the vivid difference between a civilization that protects, even celebrates (and funds!), its cultural provocateurs and a civilization that seeks their murder. This is no small point. Western civilization is not simply the Judeo-Christian tradition. It is also the civilization of Socrates and Aristophanes, Hume and Voltaire, Copernicus and Darwin; of religious schismatics and nonbelievers. This is the civilization that is now required to define itself, oddly enough, by the case of a flamboyant Dutch politician with inconsistent ideas and a bouffant hairdo.” Read more

Asians have appetite for Jewish conspiracy theories

“So what explains the remarkable appeal of Jewish conspiracy theories in Asia? The answer must be partly political. Conspiracy theories thrive in relatively closed societies, where free access to news is limited and freedom of inquiry curtailed. Japan is no longer such a closed society, yet even people with a short history of democracy are prone to believe that they are victims of unseen forces. Precisely because Jews are relatively unknown, therefore mysterious, and in some way associated with the West, they become an obvious fixture of anti-Western paranoia.” Read more

Israeli Medical Breakthrough for Treating Ovarian Cancer

“An experimental mouse model in which cancer cells isolated from a woman with ovarian cancer created a malignant tumor that mimics human ovarian cancer has been developed at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and Rambam Medical Center in Haifa” Read more

(a thought from AlertToday: So much of Israel advocacy has to go into countering Islamist propaganda that there is not enough public relations projects focused on Israeli scientific, technological and cultural achievements)

Muslim Comics Superheroes battle radical Islam

“From videogames to a Kuwaiti entrepreneur’s comic-book empire featuring Muslim superheroes, the Arab world’s private sector is leading a push to provide Muslim and Arab youth with homegrown heroes, something sorely needed as a bulwark against the trend toward radical Islam throughout the Middle East. . . El-Zanaty said he hoped these pop-culture characters could give young people a sense of hope and a positive image of themselves as Arabs.” Read more

Financial Crisis Called Top Security Threat to U.S. Says U.S. Intel Chief

“Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair told Congress yesterday that instability in countries around the world caused by the current global economic crisis, rather than terrorism, is the primary near-term security threat to the United States. . . But Blair also raised the specter of the high regime-threatening levels of violent extremism in the turmoil of the 1920s and 1930s along with instability if the economic crisis persists over a one-to-two-year period”  Read more

Israel, Iran Liable to Clash in 2009 Over Nukes, Says U.S. Intel Chief

 “Israel and Iran are liable to enter into a confrontation or a crisis sometime this year due to Tehran’s progress in its nuclear weapons program and Jerusalem’s determination to thwart it, the head of U.S. intelligence told lawmakers on Thursday. In a report to the Senate Intelligence Committee on the potential threats as foreseen by the 16 intelligence arms of the United States, Dennis Blair said that Hezbollah, the Lebanese-based Shi’ite group which is backed by Iran, has beefed up its weapons arsenal in preparation for another round of fighting with Israel.” Read more

Held at Heathrow, Geert Wilders Is Banned in Britain

 “Geert Wilders is an unlikely free-speech symbol, as the Dutch lawmaker wants to ban the Quran. And Britain is an unlikely country to suppress free speech, but police Thursday detained Mr. Wilders at Heathrow Airport to stop him from speaking at Parliament. . . the British Home Office said his presence would pose a serious threat to one of the fundamental interests of society, arguing that his statements on Islam would threaten community harmony and therefore public security in the U.K. A Home Office spokesman added: The government opposes extremism in all its forms.” Read more

Israeli vote results are a setback for Obama’s peace plans

 “While the centrist Kadima party appeared to eke out a victory, the right-wing Likud party more than doubled its seats and an ultra-nationalist party made big gains, increasing the prospect that a government uninterested in peace talks will emerge from the post-election efforts to form a governing coalition. Even if Tzipi Livni, the head of Kadima who has vowed to negotiate peace with the Palestinians, manages to cobble together a coalition after weeks of negotiations, many experts predict she will be hamstrung by her coalition partners.” Read more

 ADL poll finds 31% of Europeans blame Jews for global financial crisis

“A recent survey conducted by the Anti-Defamation League found that anti-Semitic attitudes in seven European countries have worsened due to the global financial crisis and Israel’s military actions against the Palestinians. Some 31 percent of adults polled blame Jews in the financial industry for the economic meltdown, while 58 percent of respondents admitted that their opinion of Jews has worsened due to their criticism of Israel.”  Read more

 Muslim female students at Irish university promote the hijab

 “The women - some international students from countries such as Malaysia, others who have spent most of their lives in Ireland after arriving with their families from Libya, Saudi Arabia or Pakistan - are keen to dispel what they see as myths about the conservative Muslim dress code.” Read more

ADL head decries Pandemic of anti-Semitism following Gaza defensive

 “This is the worst, the most intense, the most global that it’s been in most of our memories. And the effort to get the good people to stand up is not easy.” Read more

Caracas Jews protest synagogue attack

NEW YORK (JTA) – The Jewish community of Caracas protested an attack on a synagogue. Dozens of protesters, many bearing the flags of Israel and Venezuela, gathered Thursday outside the main Caracas synagogue, El Universal reported. Read more

U.S. Cardinal slams rehabilitated bishop

WASHINGTON (JTA) — A top U.S. Roman Catholic clergyman described the Holocaust denial of a rehabilitated bishop as deeply offensive.  Read more

We received the following message from counterterrorism expert Steve Emerson

I am taking the liberty of sending you an op-ed that appears in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal by Judea Pearl on the commemoration of the 7th anniversary of, his son, Daniel’s execution. It is a most powerful and moving essay: Read and re-read it. And then do something.

Let Bill Moyers know that his purported “evenhandedness” is tantamount to justifying the same terrorism that robbed Daniel Pearl of his life. (email for Moyers below).

Let Jimmy Carter know that his rationalization of Hamas’ actions is no different than defending Nazism (email for Carter below).

Let the New York Times know that its inability to tell the difference between Hamas butchery and the State of Israel is the equivalent of saying that Daniel Pearl’s executioners were blameless (email for the Times below).

Let the Chancellor of UCLA know that the American public will not support taxpayers’ money going to campus-sponsored Hamas hate fests. (email below)

Let the White House, the U.S. Senate and Congress know that the leaders of radical American Islamic groups such as the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) are not welcome in the White House or Congress and should not be legitimized by the FBI, Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security because they refuse to condemn Hamas and Hezbollah by name.

 Steve Emerson

 mail addresses for those described above:

 Bill Moyers - moyersonpbs@thirteen.org 

President Jimmy Carter - carterweb@emory.edu 

UCLA Chancellor Gene Block - chancellor@ucla.edu 

William Keller, New York Times Executive Editor - executive-editor@nytimes.com

White House Contact form - http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/