RePortersNoteBook.com: Jul 7, 2011

We tend to look at events surrounding us as unique to the present, as divorced from history. The description of the Holocaust as "unique" or "mysterious" suggests this, and reinforces the perception. That such descriptives originate with respected scholars and intellectuals reinforces this perception. The purpose of my writings is to establish our historical experience as, if not causal, then continuing precedent. And precedent, as evidenced by the "mystery" of the survival of antisemitism in the 21st century for example, is retained in cultural memory, an inheritance always available. Blaming "Hitler" for the Holocaust may be consoling, since he is dead and no longer a threat, but it does not respond to the real problem facing Jewish survival.

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Antisemitism and Jewish Survival

By David Turner on 06 July, 2011

From Black Death to Blood Libels, The Jews did it

"Jews should be slaves to Christians and at the same time treated kindly due of humanitarian considerations." Third Lateran Council, 1179, Canon 24

Part 7 in a continuing series representing a first draft of my book, Antisemitism and Jewish Survival: Zionism for the 21^st century. Next week, The Year 1492: "Purity of Blood" and the Spanish Inquisition.

The Black Death

The plague known as the Black Death traveled from the orient to the Middle East andEurope. It devastated Europe, more than a third of the total population dying from the disease in the mid-14th century. Although Jews also were victim, rumors spread accusing them of poisoning Christian wells in order to spread the disease (ibid. p. 127). Hundreds of Jewish communities were destroyed. "On January 9, 1349, nearly the entire Jewish population of Basel was massacred by townspeople." That massacre was typical of others perpetrated across Europe as, "the people and local leaders ofSwitzerland, France and Germany accused Jews of poisoning wells. Most were burnt alive… in 1215 Pope Innocent III … passed [an edict that inspired] Nazi Germany in the 20th century –Jews were required to wear a yellow badge at all times."

Burning of Jews during the Black Death epidemic, 1349

In Strasbourg, a city not yet touched by the plague, 900 Jews were gathered together and burned alive.

Another anti-Jewish rumor involved a supposed cabal of rabbis that gathered inSpain intent on harming Christians. According to this myth Jewish communities throughout Europe were instructed by the cabal to poison Christian wells. Five hundred years later that myth would resurface as The Protocols of Elders of Zion.

Blood libels

Another myth that grew up in this period accused Jews of ritual murder of Christian boys. The myth usually involved the kidnapping of a pre-pubescent youth who would be tied or nailed to a cross in mockery of the Christian Eucharist. The child would suffer a wound similar to that delivered to Jesus on the cross, the blood then supposed to be used in the baking of Passover matzo.

Simon of Trent, supposedly murdered in this fashion in 1475, was canonized by Pope Sixtus V in 1588. A cult developed around Simon that survives to the present. Although officially disbanded in 1965 by Pope Paul VI, evidence of its continuation is available on Catholic organization internet sites.

Even today blood libel accusations continue to excite the imagination of some Christian communities. The most celebrated modern case involved a Russian Jew, Menahem Beilis, who was arrested on July 21, 1911 for the murder and mutilation of a Ukrainian youth. Acquitted after spending two years in jail, the peasant making the charge eventually admitted that his accusations were based on tutoring by the police.

And one year after the liberation of Auschwitz, of the more than 24,000 Jewish residents of pre-war Kielce, Poland, 200 survivors returned home only to be faced with a pogrom inspired by… a blood libel. Thirty-five were murdered, and two Jews who just happened to be on a train passing through the city were also murdered.

Most recent in this series, Antisemitism and Jewish Survival:

1. The Crusades (1096-1272): 'Rehearsal' for Holocaust

2. Anti-Jewish Persecution and the failed Parousia: the year 1000

3. St. Augustine saves the Jews: The Draft Book, Part 4

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Fun stuff to read, tell and watch:

Now FREE to watch all 91 minutes: "Defamation," from Israeli filmmaker Yoav Shamir. LINK: http://tinyurl.com/3rvhdvc

Some of His Best Friends Are Jewish: The Saga of a Holocaust Revisionist By Nathaniel Popper. Link: http://tinyurl.com/3v6m88c

...an Israeli lawyer has filed a class-action lawsuit against former President Jimmy Carter, seeking $5 million in damages because his book "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid" allegedly defamed Israel. Link: http://tinyurl.com/3pltqg2

"...when you have laws against questioning the Holocaust narrative, you are screaming at the other person to stop thinking!!!" ---Mike Santomauro. *Anthony Lawson's Holocaust Video "were the Germans so stupid"... Link: http://tinyurl.com/44nsrco

An anti-Semite condemns people for being Jews, I am not an anti-Semite.--Mike Santomauro. Link: http://tinyurl.com/42z9p8o

Start reading DEBATING THE HOLOCAUST in under a minute: http://tinyurl.com/3f8h874

Peace.

Mike Santomauro

Editorial Director

ReporterNotebook@gmail.com

Call anytime: 917-974-6367

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http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/jul/5/egypt-party-leader-holocaust-is-a-lie/

Egypt party leader: Holocaust is 'a lie'

9/11 was 'made in USA,' he says

By Ben Birnbaum

The Washington Times

8:37 p.m., Tuesday, July 5, 2011

BUDAPEST — A leader of Egypt's top secular party says the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks were "made in the USA," the Holocaust is "a lie" and Anne Frank's memoir is "a fake" — comments sure to roil the post-revolution political debate in the Arab world's most populous country.

Ahmed Ezz El-Arab, a vice chairman of Egypt's Wafd Party, made the remarks in an exclusive interview with The Washington Times last week while in the Hungarian capital attending the Conference on Democracy and Human Rights.

He denied that the Nazis killed 6 million Jews during World War II.

"The Holocaust is a lie" Mr. Ezz El-Arab said. "The Jews under German occupation were 2.4 million. So if they were all exterminated, where does the remaining 3.6 million come from?"

Mr. Ezz El-Arab said he accepted that the Nazis killed "hundreds of thousands" of Jews. "But gas chambers and skinning them alive and all this? Fanciful stories," he added. (AUDIO: on the Holocaust)

Mr. Ezz El-Arab also attacked the authenticity of "The Diary of Anne Frank," which he said he studied as a doctoral student in Stockholm. "I could swear to God it's a fake," the Wafd leader said. "The girl was there, but the memoirs are a fake."

Established in 1919 and disbanded in 1952, the Wafd Party was refounded in 1983 under reforms instituted by then-President Hosni Mubarak to allow token opposition to his dominant National Democratic Party.

After Mr. Mubarak's ouster in February, Wafd emerged as arguably the second-most powerful political party to the Muslim Brotherhood, a formerly banned Islamist group.

Last month, Wafd announced it would run jointly with the Brotherhood and 16 other blocs in September's parliamentary elections to present a united front as Egypt forges a new government.

"For four years, in alliance, we can build a constitution based on certain principles that guarantee human rights, citizenship, no religious trend whatsoever," Mr. Ezz El-Arab said. "Once this is established, everybody can go to the ballot box and try his luck."

Many in Israel have expressed concern that a democratic Egypt might cancel its 1979 peace treaty with Israel.

But Mr. Ezz El-Arab, who chairs Wafd's foreign-relations committee, said there is "no chance at all" that would happen. "Egypt will not go to war unless it's attacked," he said.

As for Iran, with whom Egypt is normalizing relations, Mr. Ezz El-Arab assailed President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who also has denied the Holocaust.

"He's a hateful character, so whatever he says can be criticized," the Wafd leader said. "What he says about the Holocaust is true, but he doesn't say it because it's true. He says it out of hatred to the Israeli state."

Mr. Ahmadinejad hosted a Holocaust-denial conference in 2006 to protest the ban in many European countries on questioning the Nazi genocide — laws that Mr. Ezz El-Arab criticized.

"It's a shame that the West — the cradle of liberalism — should have a criminal law incriminating any discussion of any historical fact," Mr. Ezz El-Arab said. "It's a sacred cow. The '6 million' is a sacred cow."

Amr Bargisi, a former Wafd youth leader, said that while Mr. Ezz El-Arab himself does not have a major constituency in Egypt or within the party itself, his views on the Holocaust do.

"The vast majority of Egyptians think the Holocaust never happened," Mr. Bargisi told The Times. "The fact that his presence in the party hierarchy hasn't caused any objections tells you something about the farcical nature of Egyptian politics."

In the interview, Mr. Ezz El-Arab also said that Osama bin Laden was not behind the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

"He could not have the know-how or the ability to do it," he said, even though he called the dead al Qaeda leader "an American agent."

"If he had the ability, one plane only landing on the Knesset would give more effect," Mr. Ezz El-Arab said.

Asked who was responsible for the attacks, Mr. Ezz El-Arab identified the CIA, Israel's Mossad intelligence service, and the "military-industrial complex." (AUDIO: on 9/11)

Mr. Ezz El-Arab spoke of "the intelligent American elite that is ruling" and said it had responded to the "disaster" of President George W. Bush by electing Barack Obama president: "Obama is a nice face that has been brought up, the black rabbit taken out of the American hat when it was needed." (AUDIO: on President Obama)

Mr. Ezz El-Arab also claimed that, during the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, "American soldiers with double Israeli nationality and Jewish religion" stole Jewish antiquities from the Babylonian exile period and had them reburied in Jerusalem to cement the Jewish historical claim on the city.

"It's not a kind of monument robbery for selling in the black market," he said. "The things they took from Babel, they took with the intention — to my judgment — of digging it under the Aqsa mosque [site of Jerusalem's Temple Mount] so that when it's discovered, they say, 'Here was the temple.' " (AUDIO: on 'double Israeli nationality')

Despite the claim, Mr. Ezz El-Arab said he thinks that there once was a Jewish temple in Jerusalem and that Israeli Jews deserve to stay put.

"The Jews are there," he said. "Good or bad, they are there. You cannot as a human being think of exterminating 6 million or 5 million or whatever. That's crazy."

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