"Civilized" Euros and Aussies

Item -- International Herald Tribune, January 16th:

France's interior ministry says masked thieves who attacked a young man east of Paris to steal his car repeatedly stabbed him after noticing he was wearing a Jewish symbol. . .

The [Interior] ministry said in a statement Friday that the attackers shouted anti-Semitic threats at the man as they stabbed him four times with a knife in the Thursday evening attack.

Item -- Melbourne Australia's Nilk on RightWingDeathBogan writing about a recent Hamas rally, January 19th:

While I never felt quite safe, I only got verbally abused for being a christian and supporting Israel.

By white people, of course.


source: RightWingDeathBogan


None of us carried placards, and I'm glad about that, as the police presence was near non-existent. The one time I did have a chat to the police about the sign above, he really didn't have much of a clue about jihadi ideology.

Item -- Frank Furedi on Pajamas Media, January 17th:

I am standing in a queue waiting to buy a train ticket from London to Canterbury. A well-dressed lady standing behind me informs her friend that she “can’t wait till Israel disappears off the face of the earth.” What struck me was not her intense hostility to Israel but the mild-mannered, matter-of-fact tone with which she announced her wish for the annihilation of a nation. It seems that it is okay to condemn and demonize Israel. All of a sudden Israel has become an all-purpose target for a variety of disparate and confused causes. When I ask a group of Pakistani waiters sitting around a table in their restaurant why they "hate" Israel, they casually tell me that it is because Jews are their "religion’s enemy." Those who are highly educated have their own pet prejudice. One of my young colleagues who teaches media studies in a London-based university was taken aback during a seminar discussion when some of her students insisted that since all the banks are owned by Jews, Israel was responsible for the current global financial crisis.

Increasingly expressions of aversion towards Israel have assumed the status of a taken-for-granted sentiment in many sections of polite European society. Such attitudes are underwritten by powerful cultural forces that communicate the idea that Israel is a malevolent society sui generis. It alone faces regular demands for academic and commercial boycotts. In the media and popular culture it is often portrayed as an intensely racist and barbaric society.

Item -- La Dépêche, January 18th:

Yesterday in Toulouse pavements and walls were tagged at several locations: the inscription “Israel Nazi” on the sidewalks caused consternation among employees of a supermarket at the Allées Pompidou. Others were reported in front of the “Parc des expositions” and also in a street outside a factory. And yesterday, in the late afternoon, a bomb squad destroyed a suspicious bag near the synagogue in the Rue Rembrandt. The same place of Jewish worship was rammed by a car on the night of January 5.

Item -- The East London Advertiser, January 13th:

A fire bomb was hurled into the premises of a cafe and coffee bar in London’s East End in the early hours of this morning.

It was one of a series of 'hate' incidents in Whitechapel which have included anti-Semitic graffiti, believed to be linked to protests over Israel’s operations in Gaza.

The thugs hurled the petrol bomb through the front glass door of Starbucks in Whitechapel Road, 300 yards from Brick Lane, at 1am. . .

Scotland Yard said one line of inquiry was that it was "racially motivated" following the fighting in Gaza.

Starbucks, whose American chief executive Howard Schultz is Jewish, confirmed the attack in a statement today.

Item -- The Jerusalem Post, January 18th:

A court in the German capital struck down an administrative ban on Hamas flags, clothing and banners on Friday, but left in place the ban on invoking Hamas Foreign Minister Mahmoud Zahar's call to murder Israeli children worldwide.

The decision paved the way for supporters of the Islamist movement to march in anti-Israeli rallies on Saturday with pro-Hamas paraphernalia.. . .

Anti-Israeli demonstrations across Germany have been marked by calls to "kill, kill Israelis" and "kill, kill Jews," as well as "Jews out" of Germany and Israel.

Item -- The Jerusalem Post, January 14th:

German police officials in the cities of Duisburg and Düsseldorf, located in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, prohibited pro-Israeli supporters from displaying Israeli flags.

During an anti-Israeli demonstration organized by the radical Islamic group, Milli Görüs, which attracted 10,000 protesters last Saturday in Duisburg, two police officers stormed the apartment of a 25-year-old student and his 26-year-old girlfriend and seized Israeli flags hanging on the balcony and inside a window.

The hostile crowd pelted stones and other objects at the flags. . .

When asked if the Duisburg police plan to confiscate Israeli flags from supporters who demonstrate against an anti-Israeli protest slated for this coming Saturday, Ramon van der Maat, a Duisburg police spokesman, told The Jerusalem Post that, "we have to see what is expected" at the protest, adding, "It depends on the situation and one cannot, across the board" say that Israeli flags will be permitted.

(via Gateway Pundit, Gates of Vienna, Ed Driscoll, Infidels Are Cool, Tim Blair, Axis of Right, The Spectator (U.K.), TigerHawk)