Rising Antisemitism in South Africa?

A couple of months ago, I wrote a hard hitting post on South Africa almost topping the Antisemitism charts in the 2008 Pew Global Attitudes Survey. South Africans (along with Spaniards, Mexicans and Brazilians) were found to have some of the most negative views of Jews of all the non Muslim nation surveyed. A shocking 46% claim to have an unfavourable view of Jews. Breaking this figure down further, over two thirds of these South African who dislike Jews dislike them in the extreme. This is compared to an unfavourable score of 9% from Britain, a country which is regularly in the Jewish press for its high levels of anti-Semitism or 11% for Australia where attacks on Jews are also often reported. Even African nations like Tanzania and Nigeria were found to be less anti-Jewish than South Africa. Negative sentiments towards Muslims in South Africa were also found to be unacceptably high in the survey.

In response I called on the leadership of the South African Jewish community to desist its destructive denialism and hold an urgent press conference on the issue. As I put it ‘South Africans from the government, to media, to NGOs, to business, need to be challenged to do some serious soul searching about the high levels of intolerance that are plaguing our society. This of course is not limited to Jews and Muslims. The shocking xenophobia that we experienced at the beginning of the year has its source in the same septic pit.’

Of course no such press conference was held but the SAJBD did agree that the findings were of concern. In particular they found the fact that the Pew report seems to contradict the low level of Antisemitic incidences that are reported in South Africa worrying. They therefore approached development consultant Jocelyn Smith to contextualise the Pew report. Although I am disappointed with the limited response, I do think the SAJBD deserves praise for its sensitivity to the concerns of the community. It has been a consistent feature of the current leadership under Zev Krengel and Wendy Kahn that our worries and at time criticism are

addressed. Below is Jocelyn Smith’s findings:

PEW 2008 Global Attitudes Survey: Unfavourable Views of Jews and Muslims on the Increase

Shedding More Heat then Light

When attitudes towards Jews are shown to be unfavourable, our history teaches us that we must be concerned. The respected PEW Global Centre's 2008 Global Attitude Survey reveals a disturbing rise in ethnocentric, and specifically negative attitudes towards Jews and Muslims, highest in European Spain, Russia, and Poland. Significantly, of great concern to Jewish South Africans, is the report's finding that 46% of South Africans view Jews unfavourably. As disquieting as that is to read, an appropriate response to what these numbers mean to us needs to strike a balance between an emotional reaction brandishing the Survey report in hand, and a reasoned response based on the data presented in it.

In considering whether the Survey's findings can be generalised to South Africa, these issues should be noted: Barring countries with majority Muslim populations, those with negative attitudes to Jews also have negative attitudes to Muslims; "publics that view Jews unfavourably also tend to see Muslims in a negative light". Muslims are also viewed unfavourably by 45% of the South African population sampled.

This is inconsistent with our South African experience (post 1994), which has been that anti-Jewish attitudes are driven in the most part by Muslims and are primarily by-products of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The originators of these attitudes in South Africa are then hardly likely to also have negative views of Muslims. The Survey offers no context for the views offered.

In Western Europe, the Survey shows, the increase in anti-Jewish attitudes is driven by older, less educated people on the far right of the political spectrum. Interestingly, in those countries, the data also shows a 17% increase in the numbers of people viewing Christians unfavourably. Negative attitudes to Jews in Eastern Europe are growing most among younger, less educated people.

In pre-1994 South Africa, the far right wing publicly expressed anti-Semitism. Since then however, the opposite has been true. Where anti-Semitic remarks have been made, they have tended to be on the left of the spectrum. In South Africa's case, the Survey offers no analysis of respondents' age, gender, education or position on the political spectrum. The Survey shows an increase in negative attitudes in other countries by showing differing attitudes over time. There is no such comparison in South Africa's case. In fact, the report states that it did not use South African data obtained in a previous survey because the sampling techniques were changed. Therefore, no inferences about an increase in negative attitudes towards Jews in South Africa can be made at all from the Survey.

Perhaps the best general response to a growing tendency to view "others", including Jews and Muslims, negatively, should be to redouble efforts to promote tolerance and a greater understanding of other cultures. As a community we discount indications of negative views of Jews at our peril. Undoubtedly our community faces significant challenges, especially in the light of our support of Israel, but it would be disingenuous to use the findings of the PEW Survey as proof of an imperilled future as Jewish South Africans.

Jocelyn Smith
Development Analyst

Jocelyn Smith is the sole proprietor of JS & Associates, specialising in research, consulting and project management in the development sector, particularly in the arena of small and micro enterprise development. After working as National Director of The Continuing Education Programme, a national NGO that assisted companies and organisations to implement adult basic education in their workplaces, Jocelyn has, since 1998, worked with different partners on a variety of projects. Clients she has worked with include Investec (on their enterprise development project The Business Place), social scientist Prof Lawrence Schlemmer, The Centre for Development and Enterprise, Markdata, SSACI (Swiss South African Co-operation Initiative), BEES Development Organisation (for the BANKSETA, Human Sciences Research Council, and the International Development Research Centre) and the South African Institute of Race Relations. She completed a BA degree at the University of the Witwatersrand in 1986, followed by a Higher Diploma in Education (post grad). She taught in a high school for two years, and then went into adult education, and completed a Higher Diploma for the Educators of Adults at the University of the Witwatersrand in 1993.

Comments

[Cat vs. Roomba]

The Pew study highlights all of the European countries that have openly pursued genocidal antisemitism for several hundred years. That 'those' people show higher than average Jew hatred has nothing at all to do with 'certain right wing elements' and everything to do with the heart and soul of those nations cultures. If South Africa falls into that category, then so be it.

[Erin]

An eyewtiness account from Gaza. Those of us Jews that do not condemn such barbarity help to create anti-semitism.

It was just before noon when I heard the first explosion. I rushed to my window, barely did I get there and look out when I was pushed back by the force and air pressure of another explosion. For a few moments I didn't understand, then I realized that Israeli promises of a wide-scale offensive against the Gaza Strip had materialized. Israeli Foreign Minister, Tzpi Livni's statements following a meeting with Egyptian President Hussni Mubarak the day before yesterday had not been empty threats after all.

What followed seems pretty much surreal at this point. Never had we imagined anything like this. It all happened so fast but the amount of death and destruction is inconceivable, even to me and I'm in the middle of it and a few hours have passed already passed.

6 locations were hit during the air raid on Gaza city. The images are probably not broadcasted in US media. There are piles and piles of bodies in the locations that were hit. As you look at them you can see that a few of the young men are still alive, someone lifts a hand here, and another raise his head there. They probably died within moments because their bodies are burned, most have lost limbs, some have their guts hanging out and they're all lying in pools of blood. Outside my home, (which is close to the 2 largest universities in Gaza) a missile fell on a large group of young men, university students, they'd been warned not to stand in groups, it makes them an easy target, but they were waiting for buses to take them home. 7 were killed, 4 students and 3 of our neighbors kids, young men who were from the same family (Rayes) and were best friends. As I'm writing this I can hear a funeral procession go by outside, I looked out the window a moment ago and it was the 3 Rayes boys, They spent all their time together when they were alive, they died together and now their sharing the same funeral together. Nothing could stop my 14 year old brother from rushing out to see the bodies of his friends laying in the street after they were killed. He hasn't spoken a word since.

What did Olmert mean when he stated that WE the people of Gaza weren't the enemy, that it was Hamas and the Islamic Jihad who were being targeted? Was that statement made to infuriate us out of out state of shock, to pacify any feelings of rage and revenge? To mock us?? Were the scores of children on their way home from school and who are now among the dead and the injured Hamas militants? A little further down my street about half an hour after the first strike 3 schoolgirls happened to be passing by one of the locations when a missile struck the Preventative Security Headquarters building. The girls bodies were torn into pieces and covered the street from one side to the other.

In all the locations people are going through the dead terrified of recognizing a family member among them. The streets are strewn with their bodies, their arms, legs, feet, some with shoes and some without. The city is in a state of alarm, panic and confusion, cell phones aren't working, hospitals and morgues are backed up and some of the dead are still lying in the streets with their families gathered around them, kissing their faces, holding on to them. Outside the destroyed buildings old men are kneeling on the floor weeping. Their slim hopes of finding their sons still alive vanished after taking one look at what had become of their office buildings.

And even after the dead are identified, doctors are having a hard time gathering the right body parts in order to hand them over to their families. The hospital hallways look like a slaughterhouse. It's truly worse than any horror movie you could ever imagine. The floor is filled with blood, the injured are propped up against the walls or laid down on the floor side by side with the dead. Doctors are working frantically and people with injuries that aren't life threatening are sent home. A relative of mine was injured by a flying piece of glass from her living room window, she had deep cut right down the middle of her face. She was sent home, too many people needed medical attention more urgently. Her husband, a dentist, took her to his clinic and sewed up her face using local anesthesia

200 people dead in today's air raid. That means 200 funeral processions, a few today, most of them tomorrow probably. To think that yesterday these families were worried about food and heat and electricity. At this point I think they -actually all of us- would gladly have Hamas sign off every last basic right we've been calling for the last few months forever if it could have stopped this from ever having happened.

The bombing was very close to my home. Most of my extended family live in the area. My family is ok, but 2 of my uncles' homes were damaged,

We can rest easy, Gazans can mourn tonight. Israel is said to have promised not to wage any more air raids for now. People suspect that the next step will be targeted killings, which will inevitably means scores more of innocent bystanders whose fate has already been sealed.

This doesn't even begin to tell the story on any level. Just flashes of thing that happened today that are going through my head

[Lawrence]

Erin you are a real Jew-hater, anybody ever tell you that? Hamas rain rockets down on Israel, targeting Jewish men, women and children for death, in accordance to their charter which calls for the killing of all Jews, which is what led to these IAF airstrikes on Hamas in the first place. On the hundreds of rockets that have rained down on Israel you have nothing to say. Hamas are responsible for the IAF response, since if they did not target Jews for terrorist rocket attacks, there would be no IAF response at all, there wouldn't need to be one.

So you blame the JOOOOOS for a response to terrorism that the terrorists Hamas and Islamic Jihad themselves are responsible for. Blaming the Jews for the consequences of Islamic terrorism which doesn't bother you at all, since you have nothing to say about it, makes you a hypocritical Jew-hater. Naturally Erin would prefer it if the Jews did nothing and let Hamas just continue to target Jewish men, women and children and their homes and schools, farms and shopping malls for destruction, that doesn't count as anything bad at all.

Erin just misses the days when Jews went to their deaths like meek lambs to slaughter and didn't fight back. Unlike Hamas the Jews do not deliberately target civilians and Hamas and their fellow jihadists initiated this round of conflict in the first place, you stupid Jew-hater.

I understand Erin that you are upset that Hamas is under attack, but really go sob about it on a jihadist forum with your fellow Jew-haters.

Note how Erin above blames the Jews for anti-Semitism, if the Jews fight back against Hamas this is going to cause Jew-hatred, to Erin if the Jews just let themselves be picked off by her Hamas heroes Erin and her fellow Jew-haters won't hate us so much.

Erin post the exact piece, word for word, you posted above on a neo-Nazi forum, I promise you they will endorse it, heartily agree with it and praise your views to the skies. What does that tell us about you?

[Gary]

Erin u are disgusting. Where were u when the Arabs were shelling Israel and killing Jewish children, blowing up Jews in cafes and busses and shooting Jewish children in their beds?
Are u so desperate to be liked again by your friends at work or campus that it erases any feelings for your own people.

[Gary]

Hateful hypocrites like Erin have not expressed any regret about the thousands of Jewish women and children incinerated by Palestinazis. Perhaps that is because she does not see Jews in Israel as human? She wants Israel to sit by idly while mothers and children are killed in their hundreds by Hamas rocket. Well we will never again walk quietly to the gas chambers .We will react when our men, women and children are killed in cold blood and we will hold on to what belongs to us and the hysteria of the antisemites of whatever stripe will not deter us.

Even though the Palestnianists will continue to work towards our destruction, they will not succeed.

Israel is our home and we are not going anywhere.

[Religious Fundamentalist 1]

Erin,

When your charming swarthy Palestinian husband beats you, I hope you'll take a long hard look in the mirror and make sure you don't burn the supper next time. Just try harder.

[Benjamin]

Erin,
Comments should be that: comments. Statements deserve separate blog posts, I am sure there are plenty of discussion groups talking about the bombings in Gaza that you could have posted it on. Your statement is out of any context, purely emotional and for such a large amount of text makes only one point about the blog posting. Even, to that I disagree: if anti-Israel/pro-Palestinian sentiments was driving this you would expect anti-Muslim sentiments to decrease not increase.

But, however stupid your post was it was nothing to the pointless vitriol heaped upon you by the response comments. No wonder it is so difficult to have a reasonable discussion about the middle east when this is the level of dialogue. Pathetic. I now will look forward to the Chamberlain, Nazi appeases old worn out WW2 references that I am sure I will receive.

[Gary]

I can smell the foul stench of one of those 'Jews against Israel' petitions in the coming week or two, where those monstrously ugly pseudo-intellectual Bolshevik 'Jews' show their thorughly rotten character yet again by signing their names to the hate statetement against Israel and all of her people.

[Religious Fundamentalist 1]

I'm with you Ben, hence I kept my comment short and sweet and sufficiently obscure so that only clever chaps, such as yourself, could appreciate the implied vitriol. Erin's clearly a lost cause.

Let me know where we can meet to commisserate on the latest round of Israel's follies in garnering votes by sacrificing soldier's lives.

[Malka]

Well said Benjamin. The reaction to what Erin posted is I would go so far as to say, embarrassing. You can defend Israel's right to defend herself and support the current military decisions but still feel the pain and suffering of the children in Gaza. Is there nbo way to express human sympathy for them without the old "You f**** Jew hater bastard"?

[Gary]

Malka, where was your pain and sympathy when Israeli children were murdered by the Palistinazis?
http://daledamos.blogspot.com/2006/08/123-israeli-children-killed-by.html
And where is your pain and sympathy over the fact that 37% of Israeli children don't have neough food to eat thanks to sanctions and boycotts by your leftwing friends?
Do you not know about that or not care

[Lawrence]

Malka and Benjamin you are both so pathetic. Erin says the same things about Israel that Jew-haters say, so walks like a duck, quacks like a duck...

Since Erin never has and never will have anything to say about Hamas atrocities and other atrocities committed by their fellow jihadists the world over but vilifies Israel for the consequences of Hamas terror, she is a Jew-hater - not difficult to understand. The suffering of the children in Gaza is ultimately the responsibility of Hamas, since they have brought these strikes on themselves, along with any cessations of trade and closure of border crossings with Israel over the last year alone, all a response to Hamas and other jihadist groups unending rocket attacks. So blaming the JOOOOS for the suffering of children that Hamas thugs are responsible for is actually Jew-hatred.

Benjamin writes:

"Even, to that I disagree: if anti-Israel/pro-Palestinian sentiments was driving this you would expect anti-Muslim sentiments to decrease not increase"

No you know-nothing, just because people hate the Jews doesn't mean they can't start to hate the Muslims too - look at neo-Nazis in Europe and Britain (like the BNP), they hate the Jews like duh, but they have also started to hate the Muslims. This is so obvious with the BNP where they despise Jews and Muslims. In Europe in the Middle-Ages Jews were despised and suffered wave after wave of pogroms at the hands of Christians, yet the Christians really hated and feared the Muslims then (after their numerous conflicts with Mohammedan warriors), far more so than they do today in fact. Look at the Crusaders, they despised the Jews and massacred them in Jerusalem and elsewhere, yet they still hated the Muslims as much, and massacred them too. So hating Jews and rising anti-Muslim sentiment are not mutually exclusive Benjamin, as history teaches us.

[Gary]

Lawrence, I agree with you about jihadis like Erin, Benjamin and Malka.

But the BNP are no longer anti-Semitic and are certainly not Nazis.
They are simply people who want to keep their country from being Islamicized.
Look at their website for yourself
www.bnp.org.uk

There should be nothing offensive to us Jews unless they are of the monstrously ugly Bolshevik variety that I hate so much.
I actually wish the BNP would get in Britain and sort out the Leftist and Muslim detritus.

[Lawrence]

Gary writes
"But the BNP are no longer anti-Semitic and are certainly not Nazis.
They are simply people who want to keep their country from being Islamicized.
Look at their website for yourself
www.bnp.org.uk"

Gary you are wrong here I am afraid, the BNP remain as anti-Semitic as ever. I am friendly with some British Jews who keep a close eye on the BNP, they still hate the Jews, they have just indulged in a recent pretend make-over, a window dressing and have just been indulging in Machivellian deceit, they are cunning liars like all fascists. They have gone for a make-over in order to win votes in the Midlands and it has worked, they have fooled many ordinary Brits who would never knowingly vote for such thugs. Like many Muslim extremist groups in the West (CAIR in America for example) they pretend to be moderate to their hosts, they pay lip service to moderate status, but behind closed doors, it is the same old same old.

The BNP is the same, they pay lip service to not hating the Jews, but nothing could be further from the truth. Charles Johnson at LGF for one has done a good job (and I often disagree with Johnson on many things) at exposing them and their ilk here, there was recently a post there on the BNP, showing BNP members singing songs at some meeting, of Nazis and their "Jewish girls" in the camps, all a big laugh apparently.

check this out for an example of very recent BNP nazi rock 'n roll from the British website Harry'sPlace which is one of the best for keeping an eye on both right-wing and left-wing fascism in the UK http://www.hurryupharry.org/2008/12/15/the-new-bnp-is-still-the-nazi-bnp/

also the British anti-fascist mag Searchlight has done a lot to expose the BNP's continued love affair with the Nazis, go to www.searchlightmagazine.com

[Gary]

But u must be careful that this 'infoirmation' is from credible moderate sources and not from the loony left, who by the way all hate Israel with as much vitriol as any Nazi.

[Gary]

A l,ot of these so-called 'anti-fascist' groups are actually islamo-marxist correcto-fascist formations which hate Israel and the nation-state.
The same ppl who make up these groups are sometimes the same ppl who want to destroy Israel.

[Religious Fundamentalist 1]

Mike, Steve, can you post where your new blog has moved to. This website seems to contain only the Gary/Lawrence/BD uber-rhetoric blog, and it's getting tedious?

[Gary]

And, Hillel, who exactly apointed you to decide who'se 'uberhetoric' should appear on the site or not?

[Benjamin]

It is up to Mike and Steve to set the rules, but in the meantime perhaps it is time to review The Blogger’s Guide to Comment Etiquette.

[Lawrence]

RF, you can always go check out the M&G blogs where the Jew-haters post, maybe that's less tedious to you. Is exposing the double standards of the Jew-haters and the self-loathing Jews included, so tedious?

What I find worse than tedious are the Erin clones out there who post on so many blogs around the world, there is no shortage, literally thousands and thousands, where Erin clones blather on about evil Israel doing anything at all to fight Hamas terror, and on Hamas terror they are strangely silent; and silent on jihadist terror from around the world, when they are not supporting it, silent on the Taliban killing fourteen children yesterday for example, did Erin blog on that anywhere?

I still challenge Erin to post her Hamas agit-prop on a neo-Nazi and/or jihadist forum and see how the neo-Nazis and jihadists respond to it..

As for this blog, it is a SA Jewish blog with a small readership, SA has a small Jewish population, so very few people post here. I would also prefer it if more people posted up here RF. Not my fault they don't now, is it?

And Gary, Posner and myself hardly speak as one voice, our opinions are not the same, we do not all think alike..

Case in point (read what follows);

And Gary re the BNP,

LGF is one of the most pro-Israel and anti-Jihad blogs around, that does as much as any to expose the alliance between many on the Left and Muslim jihadists, it does more than any other blog to expose Leftwing Jew-hatred in North America and the stealth jihad by Muslims in America. The same for Harry'sPlace in the UK which does more to expose the Jew-hatred of the Left there and their alliance with the Muslim Jihad than any other British blog. LGF and Harry'sPlace are about as cryto-marxist-pro-Islamist as the Jerusalem Post, as SAUJS, as the SA Zionist Fed, as Alan Dershowitz, as this blog. Follow the links, the facts speak for themselves.

I also wouldn't trust far Left sources re the BNP and others, that's why I didn't cite far Left sources re the BNP, but the centrist pro-Israel blog LGF and Harry'sPlace. My British Jewish Zionist pro-Israel friends are also not crypto-Marxist-pan-Islamist neither, they live over in the UK, they know what's what. Melanie Phillips is one of the most well-known Jewish pro-Israel journalists in the UK, always exposing the Jew-hatred of the British Left and nobody has done more to expose Muslim radicalism in the UK and its support from the British beauracracy and Leftists (see her book "Londonistan"), she also knows the BNP are Jew-hating twits, as do numerous British Jewish organisations. Is Melanie Phillips part of the crypto-Marxist pan-Islamist front, is she a double-agent?

I think not. Follow the links Gary, see for yourself.

follow the links...

[Benjamin]

While we are waiting and in the spirit of New Years, may I suggest for all our passive readers: the It's Almost Supernatural drinking game.

Rules (in progress):
1. Every pseudo-intellectual comment, drink (if it includes a quote double!)
2. For every comment that mentioning Nazis drink (mabey a half shot here for the sane).
3. Every post condemning a fellow of commentator of terrorism sympathy, jihad-ism, loony leftism, self-hating Jewishness, Bolshevism etc drink.
4. If you can guess what the post was about from the last few comments down the bottle...

Disclaimer: and before anyone mentions it I know this is rude and I breaking etiquette rules, 2,9 and maybe more.

[Gary]

You may be right about the BNP, Lawrence BUT you must understand the frustration of ordinary indigenous British people whose children are not safe on the streets (young white girls, some as young as twelve, are raped daily by muslims and blacks in uk).
People are losing their jobs to the flood of Blacks and Asians, and almost all welfare payments go to Third World immgrants and their children, while the white working class are being impoversihed.
where do the white working clas turn?
Im not going to apol;ogize for my concern about Britain's white working class just as I am not going to apologize for my support of Israel, though I know lefty freaks may try to link my positions on these issues.

[Lawrence]

RF, you can always go check out the M&G blogs where the Jew-haters post, maybe that's less tedious to you.

What I find so much worse than tedious are all the Erin clones who post out there, them and their defenders. On so many blogs around the world there is no shortage, literally thousands and thousands of thesee Erin clones who blather on about evil Israel doing anything at all to fight Hamas terror, and on Hamas terror they are strangely silent; and silent on jihadist terror from around the world, when they are not supporting it, silent on the Taliban killing fourteen children yesterday for example, did Erin blog on that anywhere?

I still challenge Erin to post her Hamas agit-prop on a neo-Nazi or jihadist forum and see how the neo-Nazis and jihadists respond to it..

As for this blog, it is a SA Jewish blog with a small readership, SA has a small Jewish population, so very few people post here. I would also prefer it if more people posted up here RF. It's not my fault they don't now, is it?

And RF it's not as if Gary, Posner and myself speak as one voice, we have our own opinions and our differences..

Case in point (read what follows);

to Gary re the BNP,

Gary, LGF is one of the most pro-Israel and anti-Jihad blogs around, that does as much as any to expose the alliance between many on the Left and Muslim jihadists, it does more than any other blog to expose Leftwing Jew-hatred in North America and the stealth jihad by Muslims in America. The same for Harry'sPlace in the UK which does more to expose the Jew-hatred of the Left there and their alliance with the Muslim Jihad than any other British blog. LGF and Harry'sPlace are about as cryto-marxist-pro-Islamist as the Jerusalem Post, as SAUJS, as the SA Zionist Fed, as Alan Dershowitz, as this blog.

Follow the links, the facts speak for themselves.
I also wouldn't trust far Left sources re the BNP and others, that's why I didn't cite far Left sources re the BNP, but the centrist pro-Israel blog LGF and Harry'sPlace. My British Jewish Zionist pro-Israel friends are also not crypto-Marxist-pan-Islamist neither, they live over in the UK, they know what's what. Melanie Phillips is one of the most well-known Jewish pro-Israel journalists in the UK, always exposing the Jew-hatred of the British Left and nobody has done more to expose Muslim radicalism in the UK and its support from the British beauracracy and Leftists (see her book "Londonistan"), she also knows the BNP are Jew-hating twits, as do numerous British Jewish organisations. See her website, do the research. Is Melanie Phillips part of the crypto-Marxist pan-Islamist front, is she a double-agent? I think not.

follow the links...

As for Benjamin, I'm not going to be polite to Jew-haters like Erin and Malka (self-hating or non-Jews), I'm not going to pull any punches here, given what is at stake. Erin comes here with her Hamastan agitprop and I'm supposed to be polite? I noticed you didn't address the points I raised re Erin's drivel. Maybe if Ronnie Kasrils came over to this blog and posted some Hamas agitprop here, I'm supposed to be polite to him too, if a Hamas member posted up here, must I follow the "comment etiquette"?

Maybe Benji, it's time for you to review 'The Dhimmi's Guide to Islam', you think?

[Benjamin]

It is not about being polite to "Jew-haters" it is about being polite to the blog posters, remember them? They are the ones who are responsible for the incidental text that appears at the top of these long discussions. It says POST A COMMENT.

The fact is you no next to nothing about Erin accept that she sympathizes with Palestinians in Gaza, everything else is speculation. You have concocted a conspiracy theory based on duck, quack logic.

[Lawrence]

Benji, go find a neo-Nazi forum and/or a jihadist forum, and post up Erin's drivel there, let us know the response to it. We're waiting...

When the response is one of predictable endorsement and support, kindly inform us what that tells us about Erin and her defenders, including you. Will it it tell us...
1 that jihadists and neo-Nazis are liberal?
or 2 that it is all just a coincidence?
or 3 that Erin is a Hamastan propogandist, whose opinions on the Jew nation are the same as neo-Nazis and jihadists because of a very obvious reason - shared hatred of the Jew nation.

If the answer is number 2 please expand on your answer, explaining the why and the how of this uncanny coincidence.

Benji blathering on about "pseudo-intellectual", Benji do you know what projection is?

Benji still does not address anything I wrote re Erin's drivel, what a non-surprise.

Gary I know that people are voting for the BNP because they are the only ones addressing, daring to even acknowledge the plight of Islamic terror in the UK, but their agenda is still fascist and insidious, it is not the way to go, you don't counter fascism with fascism..Still the blindness of the dhimmi British establishment has led this all to pass.

[Benjamin]

Gary, Lawrence go to: blogger, in 15 min you can have your own blog and post a long article on BNP and have a long discussion about it. I am sure IAS will be happy to link to it.

[Lawrence]

Benji how about this drinking game, for every dhimmi comment you down a tot of vodka?

For every comment re Israel that is in agreement with what neo-Nazis and the Jew-hating Muslim Arab and Muslim street say, you down a tot of spirits?

What conspiracy theory Benji?? You aren't that bright, really. A little touched in the head. Who is behind this conspiracy, can you let me know?

I notice you still don't adress anything I actually wrote re Erin, if I were to go by your blather nobody would know what I actually wrote at all, including this (which I repaste with added comments for clarification).....

Since Erin never has and never will have anything to say about Hamas atrocities (on this blog) and other atrocities committed by their fellow jihadists the world over but vilifies Israel for the consequences of Hamas terror (on this blog), she is a Jew-hater - not difficult to understand.

The suffering of the children in Gaza is ultimately the responsibility of Hamas, since they have brought these strikes on themselves, along with any cessations of trade and closure of border crossings with Israel over the last year alone, all a response to Hamas and other jihadist groups unending rocket attacks. So blaming the JOOOOS for the suffering of children that Hamas thugs are responsible for is actually Jew-hatred.

Get that? No I know you don't Benji you dhimmi. Blaming the Jews for suffering that Hamas are ultimately responsible for is just Jew-hatred.

Now Benji I'm waiting for you to post up Erin's drivel word for word, unedited onto a blatantly anti-Semitic internet forum, and getting back to us on the response it receives...

Do you need help finding one?

Benji, mind informing us of which media broadcasters, journalists, newspapers, Middle-East commentators and the like you consider reliable and objective re the Middle-East? Please let us know, enlighten us, the M&G, the BBC, Al-Jazeera?

[Benjamin]

Lawrence I retract my comment about conspiracy theory, it was a mistake to post it here. This is in an inappropriate forum. In case you forgot this is the comment roll for the post: Rising Antisemitism in South Africa?

Why don't you get you own blog instead of hijacking this one? It isn't that hard really, 15 min. Not that hard.

I would gladly repost my comments there.

[Religious Fundamentalist 1]

Thanks chaps for making my case.

Ben, it seems we seldom agree, but this might just be the start of something beautiful.

A question for you Ben. Do you think Israel is justified in putting its soldiers' in harm's way for a solution of temporary and uncertain effect?
Do you think we are obliged (by rules of war, morality or other) to protect civilians at the expense of our own soldiers?

[Gary]

Why, Benjamin, have you already created your ultra-leftist/jihadi blog?

[Lawrence]

Benjamin the dhimmi writes
"This is in an inappropriate forum. In case you forgot this is the comment roll for the post: Rising Antisemitism in South Africa?"

I hadn't forgotten, that's why I addressed the anti-Semitic Hamas agitprop of Erin's that you rushed to defend. And then responded to your
support for Erin. In case you forgot.

Maybe you can explain why Erin rushes in on a thread entitled "Rising anti-Semitism in SA" to put up a post whose Israel bashing content is indistinguishable from a pro-jihadist forum and other anti-Semitic forums where blathering on about Jewish conspiracies and the like are the norm? And then explain your sympathy for Erin in this respect? Another of those coincidences? Or will answering that prove to be "inappropriate"?

I notice you now demur and try blather on about "inappropriate" when anybody challenges you on your bullshit. So I guess that means you won't be posting Erin's piece in toto on a jihadist or neo-Nazi forum, and come back to us with the response it receives? Maybe you think it "inappropriate"?

Also I guess it would be "inappropriate" to address anything I actually wrote re Erin's drivel, because you can't answer it without making up gibberish about me suffering from some conspiracy theory delusion that you are forced to retract when confronted on it.

Would it be "inappropriate" to ask you Benjamin if you consider ANY of the following commentators reliable and fair re Israel/Arab conflict, do you generally support the views/broadcasts/opinions of the following or not?

1 BBC
2 M&G
3 John Pilger
4 Robert Fisk
5 Noam Chomsky
6 Allister Sparks
7 cosatu
8 the cartoons of Zapiro

Or would you consider any of the above to be anti-Semitic? Or is it not appropriate to ask on a thread about anti-Semitism?

Since you apparently are so clued up on the Middle-East conflict and I'm one of the pseudo-intellectuals in your eyes, I await your enlightening opinion on these Leftist sources re Middle-East politics and conflict, or is this "inappropriate"?

Benji if there is a petition signed against Israel by the "not in my name" types in the coming weeks, are you going to add your name to it? Or is too early to tell? Or is it inappropriate to ask?

[Benjamin]

Lawrence
Erin was wrong, so are YOU. I did not defend her, I said to her exactly what I said to you:
Comments should be that: comments. Statements deserve separate blog posts, I am sure there are plenty of discussion groups talking about the bombings in Gaza that you could have posted it on.

My objection was not that you commented on what Erin said, but in the way you did it. A long vicious diatribe, and then you went off and had long conversation on the BNP. Where the hell did that come from!

And now, typically, you are challenging me with a list of media and what? I comment and we go on another long drawn out pointless argument. I retracted my arguments because this is NOT THE PLACE to have it.

I am sick of feeding the trolls so I am going to sign off now. Thank you RF for the support, you are right we do seldom agree but at least we can have a rational discussion. For obvious reasons I cannot answer you questions here. Perhaps when I get my ultra-leftist/jihadi blog up and running, having a devil of a time with the Sanskritic text *sigh* maybe we can have a private email conversation instead.

For all my arabic readers:

Erin كانت خاطئة ، لذلك أنت. لم أكن في الدفاع عن بلدها ، قلت لها : ما قلت لك :
وينبغي أن التعليقات : التعليقات. بيانات منفصلة تستحق بلوق وظيفة ، وأنا واثق من ان هناك العديد من مجموعات النقاش الحديث عن التفجيرات التي وقعت في قطاع غزة التي كان يمكن أن تنشر على.

لا اعتراض لي أن علقت على Erin ما قال ، ولكن في الطريقة التي فعلت ذلك. خطبة لاذعة شرسة طويلة ، ثم انفجرت وكانت محادثة طويلة بشأن هذا الحزب. حيث الجحيم من فعل ذلك!

والآن ، في العادة ، أنت لي تحديا قائمة وسائل الإعلام وماذا؟ وأود التعليق على اخر نذهب بها منذ فترة طويلة جدل عقيم. الأول تراجع عن الحجج بلدي لأن هذه هي ليست المكان المناسب لذلك.

أنا مريضة تغذية المتصيدون ذلك انا ذاهب لتوقيع الآن. أشكركم على الترددات اللاسلكية لتقديم الدعم ، أنت الحق أننا نادرا ما تتفق ولكن على الأقل يمكننا مناقشة عقلانية. لأسباب واضحة ، لا أستطيع الإجابة على الأسئلة التي كنت هنا. ربما عندما أحصل على بلدي اليسارية المتطرفة / جهاد بلوق والتي تعمل لديها وقت للشيطان مع نص سنسكريتي تحسر * * ربما يمكننا الحديث البريد الإلكتروني الخاص بدلا من ذلك.

[Religious Fundamentalist 1]

Ben, I'll take a translation of that. Send it to Mike/Steve and ask them to forward it onwards.

RF1

[Shaun]

the english and arabic are the same comment.

Thanks Ben الذهاب في السلام أخي

a famous lesson we need to remember

לדעת האויב

Perhaps we should keep things English...

[Mike]

Steve and I are both on holiday. He is in Israel and I am in NY with limited internet access.
I must say that the comments here are shocking. Lawrence and Gary you need to tone it down. I know you are angry but calling people names and attacking their character does nothing for your cause.
I believe Israel is justified in this military action but that does not take away from the fact that some innocent Gazans are really suffering. Our strategy should not only focus on free southern Israel from Hamas rain of rocket terror but also focus on freeing Gaza’s from that oppressive regime and ending the blockade.
Once again I reiterate that the comments do not reflect the views of either Steve or me.

[Gary]

Mike, I find it interesting that determined Zionists like Lawrence and myself always attract your censure and you always distance yourself from us by saying things like: "Once again I reiterate that these comments do not reflect the views of either Steve or me."
But you have never censured an Israel hater on this blog or made a disclaimer that their views are not those of yours or Steve.
I know you want to give the image of being balanced and nuanced, but when my people are under genocidal attack, I prefer to call a spade a spade.
If this makes me seem less intellectual or less nuanced etc so be it.

[Mike]

Gary, this entire blog is about responding to Israel haters as you put it.

Its not only about being balanced and nuanced, its also about a minimum level of respect as Benjamin pointed out. You and Lawrence in particular sometimes really lose it and just attack people in their personal capacity. I myself have been a victim of some of these diatribes. Now I don’t personally care much but others do. And it is in a way limiting the scope of debate on this blog. Lots of people have mentioned that they refrain from commenting out of fear of being personally attacked. I obviously respect your right to say whatever you like but ask that you be considerate. Understand that your strident views may be turning some people off Israel. I don’t think that is what you are trying to achieve.

[Stupid]

I'm not Jewish and I’m just an average South African (Afrikaner). Not all South Africans are anti-Jewish. Hamas is going to win this round of the propaganda war. Unfortunately that is where the war is going to be won, so step up your efforts!

[Religious Fundamentalist 1]

Mike's blog. Mike rules the house. Mike get's to decide what's acceptable and what not.

[Bodam Oho]

"Netanyahu defended the IDF offensive, expressing sorrow for civilian casualties, but maintaining that "Israel is trying to ferret out [Hamas] rocket launchers with pinpoint strikes."

Guys, alert! Bibi has expressed sorrow for the Palestinians. That Jew hating bastard! Filth! Yemach Shemam. May his pig name be wiped out for all eternity along with any other 'Zionists' who think its ok to express sorrow and sympathy for the PaliNazis. Stay vigilant oh hero zionists!

Sorry for my above extreme sarcasm, but you guys just attack anyone as a dhimmi if they differ slightly from your fascist viewpoints!

[Gary]

I love the way 'fascist' has become a stock word by loony leftie bolsheviks for anyone with whom they disagree.

[Bodam Oho]

Gary, I dont think its your opinions which betray a sense of intellect ;)

You write: "Lawrence, I agree with you about jihadis like Erin, Benjamin and Malka."

and you write:"I love the way 'fascist' has become a stock word by loony leftie bolsheviks for anyone with whom they disagree."

So Gary, do you LOVE the way "Jihadis" has become a stock word by loony right stupid people for anyone with whom they disagree? Do you huh? huh? Hahaha...lol... to be honest, I dont know why I am wasting my time with you.

Now I am also a Dhimmi/Jihadi/Bolshevik huh? Even though you know nothing about my points of view. But I imagine you call your math teacher (sorry, I am assuming you are still in school) a stupid Jihadi when she is angry with you.

Jihad Jiha Jihad Dhimmi Dhimmi Dhimmi...tralalala

[really simple syndicate search]

I couldnt agree with you more...