Ew, there’s another picture at the link: Helen Thomas has withdrawn from the anti-AIPAC festival happening in DC at the exact same time of the AIPAC conference. Apparently, even some of the ex-Jews signing onto anti-AIPACFest can’t stomach Thomas’ anti-Semitism. Not that Medea Benjamin gives a damn, but then, any woman who would deliberately change her name to the mythological witch who murdered her children to save her lover is not exactly someone who I think can tell right from wrong.

“The conference is really to talk about –and many of us are Jews- is to work for a policy where Israel and Palestine can live together in peace and get a process started,” Benjamin, who is Jewish, said. “My values are Jewish and I believe in Compassion for all and AIPAC does not represent my Jewish values. Helen Thomas is one of 30 people who have been invited and we are a community of people who cherish Jewish values.”

Yeah. Sure. Jewish values.

I’m not anti-Jewish; I’m anti-Zionist. I am anti Israel taking what doesn’t belong to it. If you have a home and you’re kicked out of that home, you don’t come and kick someone else out. Anti-Semite? The Israelis are not even Semites! They’re Europeans, and they’ve come from somewhere else. But even if they were Semites, they would still have no right to usurp other people’s land. There are some Israelis with a conscience and a big heart, but unfortunately they are too few.

A slip of the tongue. Right.

Gul Dukat tells Israel to shut up and do what the Arabs want them to do: Gul Dukat, the prime minister of Turkey, had his PR people write an op-ed, so of course the New York Times published it. He’s not a bad guy. He just wants to help. What, his anti-Israel bent for the last several years? His support of the IHH terrorist flotilla? His constant demagoguing about Israel in Turkey? Feh. Look, he has an idea for peace. It’s the Arab peace plan, which gives the Palestinians everything they want, gives Israel nothing, and tells Israel to absorb millions of third-generation “refugees,” but hey—that’s what the Times wants to, isn’t it?

But it’s going to be peaceful: Now Fatah says they’re sending officials on the new Gaza flotilla. Officials like this:

Fatah was not part of the May 2010 flotilla. “We didn’t participate in the previous flotilla, but we supported it and the attack on Israel that followed,” said Shaath.

And still, the media will call them “peace activists.”

Yeah, tell it to the Czar: Israel is complaining to Russia about the Russian-made, Iranian-bought, Syrian-smuggled Kornet anti-tank missile used against an Israeli school bus last week. Think Russia gives a shit? I don’t.

Feel-good reads for you: Read this. And this. And this. Mind you, they’re not warm-fuzzy feel good op-eds. But they’re good to read.

Seriously? Gee, I can’t imagine why: The UN sent an investigator to Quantico to try to determine if Bradley Manning is being tortured by the U.S. Marines. He was denied access to Manning. See title.

Shyeah, like that’s gonna work: The Red Cross wants Hamas to show proof Gilad Shalit is still alive. See title.

The standard chickens are either gassed in pens or hung upside down by their feet and dipped in a bath of electrocuted water – a plastic bar being placed on their chest to keep them calm. Halal chickens have their throats cut when they are alive – albeit in many cases they are stunned in a water bath first.

It’s about Jews, with the shabby excuse that it’s about treating animals humanely. The Dutch did some kind of experiment that claims that animals slaughtered by kosher methods feel more pain than stunned animals.

Hm, let’s see. A European nation banning kosher slaughter. Where have we heard that before?

If the Netherlands does outlaw procedures that make meat kosher for Jews or halal for Muslims, it will be the first country outside New Zealand to do so in recent years. It will join the Scandinavian, Baltic countries and Switzerland, whose bans are mostly traceable to pre-World War II anti-Semitism.

Oh. And now we get to the real reason behind the ban. But of course, don’t say it out loud.

“I scratched off the first sticker in 1986, at a bus stop in front of my house,” Mensah-Schramm said as she ambled through the streets armed with her spray paint and metal scraper. It demanded “Freedom for Rudolf Hess” – Adolf Hitler’s deputy, who at the time was still alive and in prison in Berlin.

“The sticker was there all day and I couldn’t understand why nobody else took it off – people can be so ignorant,” she said.

For 25 years, Mensah-Schramm has taken it on herself to clean Berlin of neo-Nazi propaganda scrawled by skinheads and other right-wing groups. She calls herself the “political cleaning lady of the nation” and during one of her recent tours of the city she said that in the last four years alone, she has scratched away more than 36,000 right-wing stickers.

She said seeing racist slurs sprayed on walls across the German capital with its atrocious Nazi past made her angry and she felt a personal responsibility to do something about them.

“Freedom of speech ends where hatred and racism begin,” Mensah-Schramm said.

I once took down a campaign sign for a viciously anti-Semitic political party in NJ. It was on the median of Route 22, and I passed it on the way to and from work on a daily basis. It annoyed me no end. So one night, I was passing by with a friend. It was late. I stopped the car on the shoulder, ran out, and pulled it down.

Boy, that felt good.

This woman is doing what she’s doing for even less reason—simply because she feels it’s the right thing to do. Good for her.

Since the latest SNN is not yet out, I think I’ll just take bits and pieces from my segment for you.

I know the thought of Helen Thomas in Playboy magazine causes even lifelong atheists to pray to God that the article has no pictures. I’m sorry, fellas. It does. The good news is, she’s not naked. The bad news? Now that I’ve put that thought in your head, it’s going to take you a month to recover enough to have sex again. Some excerpts below:

[SNIP]
THOMAS: Well, that immediately evoked the concentration camps. What I meant was they should stay where they are because they’re not being persecuted—not since World War II, not since 1945. If they were, we sure would hear about it. Instead, they initiated the Jackson-Vanik law, which said the U.S. would not trade with Russia unless it allowed unlimited Jewish emigration. But it was not immigration to the United States, which would have been fine with me. It was to go to Palestine and uproot these people, throw them out of their homes, which they have done through several wars. That’s not fair. I want people to understand why the Palestinians are upset. They are incarcerated and living in an open prison. I say to the Israelis, “Get out of people’s homes!” It’s unacceptable to have soldiers knocking on a door at three in the morning and saying, “This is my home.” And forcing people out of homes they’ve lived in for centuries? What is this? How can anybody accept it? I mean, Jewish-only roads? Would anyone tolerate something like that in America? White-only roads?

PLAYBOY: You mean Israeli-only roads, not Jewish only, right? [Editor’s note: Israel closes certain roads to Palestinians, but roads are open to all Israeli citizens and to other nationals, regardless of religious background.]

THOMAS: Israeli-only roads, okay. But it’s more than semantics because the Palestinians are deprived of owning these roads. This is their land. I’m sorry, but we’re talking about foreigners who came and said, “God gave this land to us.” [Former Israeli prime minister ­Yitzhak] Rabin said, “Where’s the deed?” I mean, come on! Do you know that an Arab Palestinian trying to go home to see his mother has to go through 10 checkpoints and then is held there, while an American tourist can go through right like that? The Palestinian people have to carry their kids to hospitals and are not allowed to drive cars and so forth. What is this? No American Jew would tolerate that sort of treatment here against blacks or anyone else. Why do they allow it over there? And why do they send my American tax dollars to perpetuate it?
[/SNIP]

And little miss Jew-hater’s best little defense:
[SNIP]
PLAYBOY: Do you have a personal antipathy toward Jews themselves?

THOMAS: No. I think they’re wonderful people. They had to have the most depth. They were leaders in civil rights. They’ve always had the heart for others but not for Arabs, for some reason. I’m not anti-Jewish; I’m anti-Zionist. I am anti Israel taking what doesn’t belong to it. If you have a home and you’re kicked out of that home, you don’t come and kick someone else out. Anti-Semite? The Israelis are not even Semites! They’re Europeans, and they’ve come from somewhere else. But even if they were Semites, they would still have no right to usurp other people’s land. There are some Israelis with a conscience and a big heart, but unfortunately they are too few.
[/SNIP]

You got that? It’s Zionists. We’re clear on that. She has nothing against Jews. Just Zionists. Right? Got it? Good.

Now read this:

[SNIP]
PLAYBOY: In the wake of your anti-Israel comments, a blogger from The ­Atlantic argued there’s really no distinction between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. He wrote, “Thomas was fired for saying that the Jews of Israel should move to Europe, where their relatives had been slaughtered in the most devastating act of genocide in history. She believes that once the Jews are evacuated from their ancestral homeland, the world’s only Jewish country should be replaced by what would be the world’s 23rd Arab country. She believes that Palestinians deserve a country of their own but that the Jews are undeserving of a nation-state in their homeland, which has had a continuous Jewish presence for 3,000 years.…”

THOMAS: [Interrupts] Did a Jew write this? [Editor’s note: The writer is Jeffrey Goldberg.]
[/SNIP]

Uh-huh. Zionists. Not Jews. Zionists.

It’s time for the Yourish.com mantra: Anti-Semites of the world, just die already. Helen Thomas, we’re talking to you.

Anti-Semitism Israel “Apartheid” month commences: Phyllis Chesler has a great piece about how the left is just using Israel for its protest fix. Via.

Jews against Jews? So the Jews Zionists control the media, except at NPR, and this guy, who has a Jewish last name, is only too happy to agree with undercover citizen journalists posing as Muslims offering $5 million to NPR. So, Ron Schiller—are you Jewish? Because if you are, that makes your actions even more offensive.

When the man pretending to be Kasaam suggests to Schiller that “Jews do kind of control the media or, I mean, certainly the Zionists and the people who have the interests in swaying media coverage toward a favorable direction of Israel,” Schiller does not rebut him or stop eating. He just nods his head slightly.

Well done, Ron! Well done! Another reason for me to continue to refuse to fund NPR. For the record, I don’t think we should defund all government funds for programming. I like the Richmond PBS station, and think the PBS stations give programming we would not otherwise get. NPR, on the other hand—buh-bye.

Mini-Durban: It’s on, Israel! The UN is bashing Israel again. Because it’s not like there’s anything else going on in the Middle East of note.

Religious anti-Semitism is only one part of the Jew hatred in the world today, and Christian anti-Semitism lags far behind Muslim anti-Semitism as a leading cause of Jew hatred. Muslim anti-Semitism has been thoroughly institutionalized throughout the Arab and Muslim world, so much so that when the dictators fall—the ones who have used the Jew Blame Game to keep their wretched masses from realizing who, exactly, was making them so wretched (and here’s a hint: It wasn’t the Jews)—it doesn’t matter. Their people still hate the Jews.

The Obama administration is preparing for more Islamist governments to take over the Middle East, which means it’s more likely that the governments will be more hostile to Israel. And by “preparing,” I’m pretty sure it doesn’t mean “Trying to get them to stop hating Jews and Israel.” Not that that would be an expected goal of United States foreign policy. After all, it’s far more important to tell the Muslim world that we’re working on the fantasy “Islamophobia” than to tell them to stop producing 41-part miniseries based on The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. And who did that? Why, Hosni Mubarak’s Egypt, that’s who. And there was a sequel. Refusing to sell Israel gas that was paid and contracted for is only one tiny step the Islamists will take. Israel is surrounded by Islamic nations who have been raised to hate Israelis and Jews, and who will soon control the armies of those nations. NOTE: The miniseries was produced in 2002, so no, I’m not blaming Obama for it. It is merely an example of the institutionaized Jew-hatred that has been ignored by successive administrations. To see the modern Jew-hatred, one needs only look at the reports on the news by Hosni Mubarak that the Egyptian protests were being helped along by “Israeli spies.” Because in the Middle East, you can never go wrong by blaming the Jews.

The anti-Semitism of celebrities seems to really shock the world at large. Mel Gibson gets drunk and spouts Jew-hatred; the world issues a collective gasp—even though this was years after Gibson baited Jews in order to propel his movie about Christ to the news cycle and thus get millions of dollars of free publicity. I recall getting into blogwars with people who thought I was imagining that Gibson had a Jewish problem. My anti-Semitism detector may be set lower than most, but it’s almost never wrong.

Last year we saw that Helen Thomas, the former “dean” of the White House Press Corps, whose anti-Israel views were extremely well known, let slip the mask of her true Jew hatred. And every time she opens her mouth now on Israel, another drool of venom slips out. Charlie Sheen decided that calling Chuck Lorre (born Charles Levine) “Haim Levine” was the thing to do in a rant, denying that he had any bad intent. Sure. Calling him “Jewboy”? Too overt. Calling him “Haim” (sounds so much like Hymie, too!)? Defensible. Sure.

Indefensible is the designer John Galliano’s little rant about how much he adored Hitler. Natalie Portman wasn’t the only one disgusted. But of course, Galliano has his defenders, who point out that he was drunk, and we all say things we don’t mean when we’re drunk, right? Like Mel Gibson. He didn’t mean it the first time. Or the second. Or the third. Drunkenness causes anti-Semitism, didn’t you know that?

And then, of course, we come to the elephant in the room. Anti-Zionism is the anti-Semitism of the 21st century. Hatred for the Jewish state comes in all shapes and sizes, and some of the most vehement hatred I’ve seen has been in comments on British newspaper sites from atheists. Those who profess themselves to be above all this silly religious fantasy simply froth at the mouth when discussing Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians. And it’s not just the atheists. The communists, the socialists, the rich, the poor—it’s simply an amazing cross-section of Europeans who hate Israel with a fiery passion. But of course, they don’t hate Jews. No. When European Muslims attack Jews, though, isn’t it because of Israel? That’s what they tell their Jewish populations. If only there were a Palestinian state, there would be no attacks on Jews, no Jew-hatred, no drunken rants by foppish fashion designers, no chants of “Jews to the gas” at soccer matches, no need to have empty stadiums when Israeli teams compete in Europe—no, all these things will disappear when there is a state called Palestine (that will, of course, have no Jews in it).

So I’d have to conclude by saying thanks to the Pope. We do appreciate your attempt to stop your followers from hating us. (And believe me, I’ve met my fair share of Jew-hating Catholics.) Now if only the Pope had a bit more influence over the rest of the world.

Perhaps if they didn’t keep throwing money at third-generation Palestinian “refugees”: NGOs are having trouble handling Libyan refugees. Gee, maybe if the UN didn’t keep pouring hundreds of millions of dollars a year into UNRWA, there would be more money and aid available to actual refugees. But no, we have to keep beating on Israel.

Hamas, the Holocaust deniers: This will be interesting. Hamas is saying it will stop the UN from teaching about the Holocaust in UNRWA camps. Let’s see who wins. My prediction: Violence will be involved, and downplayed by the UN. Or blamed on Israel.

If you’re Arab and you know it, blame the Jews: I swear, sometimes that’s all it takes. Amr Moussa is blaming Israel for trying to prevent him from running for president of Egypt. Why is he doing this? Because blaming Israel is the most popular theme in the Middle East. Oh, let’s face it: Blaming Israel is the world’s favorite obsession.

Just your run-of-the-mill European anti-Semite: When you are blatantly anti-Semitic and professing your drunken love for Hitler, dude, your job is toast. The fact that Galliano worked for one of the world’s biggest fashion houses? Feh. Doesn’t everyone hate the Jews a little, really? Except for those Americans, but they’re so provincial, darling. By the way, Galliano? Hate you too, bitch.

The left blames the right. The right blames the left. The sane blame insanity. What Loughner put on Youtube and what he said to friends about his conspiratorial beliefs is simple insanity. Many of us try to explain terrible events by trying to attribute order to them, giving them a cause and therefore and effect that we can comprehend. Some went after leaders on the political right including Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, but most strongly Governor Palin. They argued that her words and actions incited this man to this deed. Palin had evidently placed crosshairs on a map of congressional seats to target as especially important to win for those politically aligned with her. Rep. Giffords district was one of them. “Palin put crosshairs on Giffords! She must be responsible!”

Well friends, Loughner published a lot online and with incredible and ludicrous details. No where does he mention anything about Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, or Rush Limbaugh. Here is where anti-Judaism creeps in to the picture.

No few people accused Palin of inciting Loughner to this action and Palin responded by accusing them of a “blood libel“. “Blood Libel!” Some Jewish leaders screamed:

Blood libel is a term that belongs to us! It can only refer to accusations that Jews use the blood of others for baking matzah, for sacrifices, for gefilte fish, for powering Dimona, as a secret ingredient in Coca Cola, for making Barbies and other actions of pure evil.

Well, I embellish a bit. The reality is that “blood libel” does indeed have painful connotations for Jews. Libels have resulted in pogroms against the Jews time and again with some entire communities being massacred. Yet the concept is a simple one, and here Governor Palin was correct. The concept is that one community, or even a person, is accused of a murder in which they were totally uninvolved because the accuser wishes to do that community, or the specific people accused, harm regardless of their culpability. Jews were accused of crimes because people hated the Jews, not because they were involved in the crimes. Meanwhile, the Jewish community officially objects to Gov. Palin’s use of the term. Okay. I think it was appropriate to an extent, but using another term would have been better, one option which I will share with you in a moment.

Where does the anti-Judaism come in? It comes into the picture with the selective outcry about incitement. All one need do is to look at the difference between the coverage of the Fort Hood shooting and the Tucson shooting. In the Fort Hood shooting, the perpetrator was a devout Muslim who had at one point attended the mosque in America led by Anwar Al-Awlaki, near the top of the Al-Qaeda chart. Al-Awlaki is the head of Al-Qaeda in Yemen. No one in the mainstream media, N-O O-N-E, would ever accuse Maj. Hasan of being incited by an Imam in an American Mosque, would they??? Hasan had direct contact and was in communication with Al-Awlaki in America!!! But the media blamed the army, the right wing in fact, for persecuting him, even though the military welcomed him and went out of its way to help him through his schooling and residency.

Let us compare that to the Tucson incident. In that, the media immediately looked for incitement by right wing leaders, going so far as to ignore the facts published by Loughner himself that negated their arguments. Who needs facts when you have a narrative that you like to use! Some of you have just noted that this is where Governor Palin is connected with anti-Judaism.

Jews and Israel specifically are often accused of crimes that they not only did not commit, but can provide evidence that they had nothing to do with. Yet there are those out there who accuse none-the-less. Is the argument that Israel trained sharks to attack tourists in Egypt not libelous? What about the argument that the Mossad is responsible for the attacks against Christians in Iraq rather than the Muslims who claimed responsibility? How about those who argue that Israel perpetrated 9/11? I could go on and on, but you get the point. The assertion that Governor Palin’s words somehow impelled this wacko (wacko is far nicer a term than is deserving) to bloodlust is not only totally unfounded, but is in fact controverted by the evidence offered by Loughner himself. Should Governor Palin and others similarly accused have called the media’s accusation a “blood libel” as opposed to a Media Libel, which is the term I would rather apply, or some other similar term? Perhaps she should have used another term. But fussing at her about her use of “Blood Libel” misses the real point. The real point is that the same narrative hugging, fact denying, that is going on against Israel and has been going on against the Jews for time immemorial is being applied in the mainstream American press to their perceived opponents on the political right.

Far from being guilty of anti-Judaism, Governor Palin and others on the political right including Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, who were also similarly accused of incitement, were in many ways the victims of anti-Judaism simply applied beyond the boundaries of the Jewish community and unto friends of Israel. Meanwhile, as I write this, Rep. Giffords, a strong supporter of Israel and a member of the all too persecuted tribe, is making a remarkable recovery in a Houston hospital. My thoughts are with her, with her family, with others making recoveries and with the families of those who lost loved ones to Sinat Hinam, blind hatred.

Associated Press reporters saw at least four gatherings of up to 30 people each, dressed in black and carrying hand-held radios. One gathering was about 400 meters (1,300 feet) from the Grand Serail, the seat of government in downtown Beirut, and security officials closed the roads leading to the building.

That’s just a shot across the bow. Lebanon is on the edge of a precipice.

Perversion of Aliyah: A Bosnian man married to a Jewish woman emigrated to Israel five years ago. Turns out he’s wanted for genocide in a massacre of Bosnian Muslims. Israel, of course, is cooperating. But mark my words, the anti-Israel left will use this as an example of Israeli genocide, even though the man is neither Jewish nor Israeli-born.

Remember, it’s anti-Zionism, not anti-Semitism: Someone painted a swastika on cargo from a British Airways flight to Israel. Gee. I guess they didn’t get the message that hate crimes are wrong in the U.K. Oh, wait. I forgot. The Exception Rule was in play. That’s where you add “Except for Jews” to every rule. So hate crimes are wrong, except for the ones against Jews. Like Israeli Double Standard Time, however, not to worry: It’s only in effect on days that end with a Y.