Love of the Land: Setting the record straight on the Jews of Syria

Setting the record straight on the Jews of Syria

Bataween
Point of No Return
02 February '10

Jews left Syria for the Americas, 'not for the embarrassment of Zionism next door'. Muslims 'saved' the Aleppo Codex. 'Riots never happened' against the Jews, but if they did the Israelis inflicted the same oppression on the 'innocent' Palestinians. Taking Syria's sorry treatment of its Jews as an example, Israelinurse bravely tackles some of the myths on the Guardian Comment is Free website where revisionism on the plight of Mizrahi Jews is rife. Read her piece on CiF watch :

"There is, of course, ample information both in print and on-line readily available for those who wish to inform themselves about the experiences of Mizrahi and Sephardi Jews. One useful publication which predates the electronic era is Sir Martin Gilbert’s atlas entitled ‘The Jews of Arab Lands – Their History in Maps’ from 1976, in which one can see at a glance exactly what befell the Jews of Syria, and those in other Arab countries, in stark contrast to the myths propagated above.

"In 1943 the Jewish population of Syria numbered some 29,770, in 1946 it had fallen to 18,000 and in 1974 there remained only 4,000 Jews there. In Kamishliye in June 1967, 57 Jews were murdered by a mob of anti-Jewish rioters. In Aleppo, where Jews had lived since biblical times, predating Islam by many centuries of course, the Great Synagogue was looted and prayer books burnt in the street on November 18th, 1945. On December 2nd, 1947, just days after the adoption of the UNSC resolution to establish the State of Israel, many Jews were killed in anti-Jewish riots; 150 Jewish homes, 50 shops, 18 Synagogues and 5 schools were set ablaze. Some Jews fled to the Yishuv after this incident, including the father of a friend of mine who describes himself as a ‘Halabi’ and recounts his night-time trek down the slopes of the Golan Heights carrying his precious oud. Others fared less well: in November 1950, 30 Syrian Jews were murdered at sea by Arab seamen paid to take them by boat to Israel.

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Love of the Land: Setting the record straight on the Jews of Syria

Love of the Land: Rights Against Safety

Rights Against Safety

Yaacov Lozowick
Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations
28 January "10

My first post this morning favorably compared Jessica Montell of B'tselem with the rank antisemites who congregate at Mondoweiss, CiF and elsewhere. Well, here's some balance: a demonstration of the weakness in the thinking of Israel's radicals - in this case, Hamoked, Center for the Protection of the Individual.

Hamoked is not a very important organization, but it does have some presence. It's thesis is that Israel is unjust to Palestinian individuals and this must be corrected - so far, so reasonable. When you note that they have no problem criticizing the Supreme Court (High Court of Justice, HCJ, which I have recently mentioned as Bagatz) you begin to see that they're well off the mainstream. Israelis criticize the High Court sometimes, but carefully. The Left, rarely. The far Left, however, don't feel inhibited.

The reason I'm mentioning Hamoked is an e-mail they've sent out. It wasn't meant for me, but e-mails have the habit of washing up at strange shores. This one is an attempt to recruit a writer for their website. They've got eight lines of necessary qualifications, most of them just what you'd expect (English and Hebrew writing abilities, legal background, that sort of thing). Yet it's the first qualification which is telling:

מחויבות מוצקה לנושא זכויות אדם, לרבות במצבים של התנגשות בין זכויות אדם לצרכי ביטחון
High commitment to human rights, especially in cases of conflicts between human rights and security issues (needs).

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Love of the Land: Rights Against Safety

Love of the Land: Guardian website contributor says that recalcitrant Israeli settlers should be “slaughtered” in latest example of a new phenomenon in Great Britain

Guardian website contributor says that recalcitrant Israeli settlers should be “slaughtered” in latest example of a new phenomenon in Great Britain

Robin Shepherd
robinshepherdonline.com
12 January '10

One of the new realities of the internet age for the mainstream media is that the distinction between an opinion piece and the readers’ comments which come below it is increasingly blurred. This is all the more so for interactive sites such as the Guardian’s immensely popular Comment is free (Cif) site where regular “below the line” contributors are now as much a part of the overall experience as the commentary to which they are responding. Such contributors help create the kind of interactive community which has become the new holy grail of online news and comment services.

So, when it comes to the Guardian’s notoriously vicious stance against the state of Israel it is hardly suprising that the community that has been created draws from among the foulest and most bigoted of the Jewish state’s numerous opponents. As an example, consider the following comment by regular below-the-line contributor William Bapthorpe which was brought to my attention by the invaluable media watchdog service CiF Watch. Referring to the settlers, in a thread following an article by Nicholas Blincoe, he said:

“Sadly, there’s only one way to deal with these religiously motivated maniacs who think their superstitious beliefs trump international law. 1. We ask them to leave their squats, kindly. 2. If they don’t, we force them to [leave] at gunpoint. 3. If they still refuse, they must be slaughtered, every last man woman and child.” (My italics)

If this were simply an isolated incident it would not be worth remarking on. Every website attracts its share of oddballs. But CiF Watch, which was set up last year to monitor a Guardian online community that attracts more than 30 million visits a month, provides reams of this sort of thing suggesting that at the intersection between the technological innovations of the new media and an ideological edifice which makes a fetish of demonising the most important Jewish project of our time an entirely new phenomenon has now emerged in Great Britain.

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Love of the Land: Guardian website contributor says that recalcitrant Israeli settlers should be “slaughtered” in latest example of a new phenomenon in Great Britain