Home » Opinion » Page 11
→ 7 August 2019
→ By
→ Leave a Comment

Are we forgetting the Holocaust? | Newsroom

A new poll shows that a nearly a third of New Zealanders know little or nothing about the Holocaust and less than half know that six million Jews were killed by the Nazis. Mark Jennings reports.

Next year will be the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz but what happened there and in other Nazi death camps is drifting from our consciousness.

Nearly a million Jews were killed in the gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Poles, Gypsies and Russian prisoners of war made up another 100,000.

Auschwitz was the most efficient killing machine but Treblinka and Belzec, two more death camps in Poland, were close behind with a combined 1.4 million victims.

There are thousands of survivors still alive today, including a small number in New Zealand, but our knowledge of the Holocaust is fading or increasingly, non-existent.

In a poll of 1000 New Zealanders taken last month, 27 percent said they knew little about the Holocaust, 28 percent said they were unsure about how much they knew and 2 percent admitted to knowing nothing.

Read more

Filed Under: Opinion
→ 26 July 2019
→ By
→ 1 Comment

Is Jesus Good for the Jews? | Wall St Journal

NZFOI: A particularly relevant and timely piece, after Golriz Ghahraman’s recent allegations that Jesus was a “Palestinian refugee.”

Was Jesus a Jew? The idea shouldn’t be controversial. Yet there have been plenty of attempts to challenge his connection to Judaism. Dissociating Jesus from his Jewishness has a dark history that continues to poison discourse today.

In the early 20th century, the anti-Semitic and racist German-British philosopher Houston Stewart Chamberlain argued that while Judaism provided the religious background for Jesus, he “had not a drop of genuinely Jewish blood in his veins.” The Nazis picked up on this thread. As Hitler consolidated power, German theologians insisted that Jesus was not a Jew but an Aryan, descended from Galilean gentiles.

In the context of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has sought to sever Jesus’ religion from his nationality or ethnicity. In a 2014 Christmas message, Mr. Abbas called Jesus “a Palestinian messenger of love, justice and peace.” This remains a common refrain from anti-Israel activists.

Sometimes this rhetoric is aimed at erasing Judaism from the religious and moral history of Western civilization. Other times it’s an attempt to undercut Jewish appeals to a uniquely ancient relationship with the land of Israel. Either way, these objections place Jews in a complicated position.

Read more

Filed Under: Opinion Tagged With: , , , ,
→ 22 July 2019
→ By
→ Leave a Comment

An important connection between communities in the wake of terror | Stuff

By Juliet Moses and Anwar Ghani

Juliet Moses

Many New Zealanders have apparently been surprised by the warm and respectful relationship between the Muslim and Jewish communities of Aotearoa New Zealand that has become evident in the wake of the horrific events of March 15.

It is understandable that New Zealanders who are neither Muslim nor Jewish have been unaware of and are surprised by this relationship, given certain geopolitical matters and other events in the news. But our communities have a shared, if unarticulated, understanding that those matters are to be left on the other side of the world; that we are New Zealanders first and foremost. We embrace a harmonious society and the Kiwi way of life.

Anwar Ghani

Our community members have celebrated together the inauguration of a new Torah (sacred scrolls) in our Auckland synagogue, we have grieved together at the loss of Dr Hashem Slaimankhel, a friend of the Jewish community who was killed by a suicide bomb when visiting his homeland of Afghanistan, we have broken bread together and collaborated on interfaith initiatives. 

Read more

Filed Under: Opinion Tagged With: ,
→ 16 July 2019
→ By
→ Leave a Comment

Green MP Golriz Ghahraman guilty of clumsiness, not racism | Stuff

Liam Hehir

One summer as a teenager I had a temporary job and became friendly with one of my coworkers, with whom I enjoyed talking to about the news.

One day this person took me aside and offered to lend me a book but wouldn’t tell me what it was about. I felt a little bit put out by the secrecy but agreed nonetheless.

I received delivery of the book next day and took it home to read. It was all about the people that the author thought really run the world and who are responsible for everything bad that happens. That is to say, it was a book about the Jewish people and their imagined crimes.

It was a bit of a shock to me and an early lesson in just how insidious conspiratorial thinking can be. We probably all know at least one person who is sunny, helpful and honest in their personal dealings who also harbours some absolutely crazy views about the world. And antisemitism is so persistently among those insane outlooks that i daresay we can assume it will never die.

Read more

Filed Under: Opinion Tagged With: ,
→ 15 July 2019
→ By
→ Leave a Comment

Israel-Embassy-Sponsored Scholarship Should Be Terminated Kristin Crowe | Salient

NZFOI: This article describes Student for Justice in Palestine’s (SJP) campaign to have an Israeli government academic prize withdrawn. It is a step toward mounting further pressure on the Victoria University of Wellington (VUW) to adopt BDS. Salient is the VUW weekly student magazine.

On Thursday, 16 May, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) held a meeting at Berrigan House to protest a scholarship for essays on the Israeli State—a state whose political systems they say are inherently “racist” and “brutal”.

The Embassy of Israel Prize in Political Science and International Relations is listed on Victoria’s website through the Department of History, Philosophy, Political Science and International Relations. The $250 scholarship is awarded to one student per year on the merit of an essay on one of the given topics—including ”Israel and the Middle East”, ”Israel’s bilaterial relations with its neighbours”, and ”Israel’s democracy in the context of the Middle East”. The winner is selected by the Head of Department, and the winning essay “may be provided” to the Ambassador.

In the wake of a century of fighting between Israelis and Palestinians, US interventions have failed to produce peace. Israel’s continued presence in Gaza and the West Bank—including building settlements illegally in Palestinian territory, restricting the flow of commercial goods to Palestine, and denying Palestinians the right to vote—has sparked an international protest movement. Proponents are calling for boycotts, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) against the Israeli state.

Many universities in the US, Canada, and New Zealand have SJP groups which promote BDS on their campuses. Victoria is not currently participating in BDS protest, and maintains ties with Israeli universities. Lecturers from these universities have appeared on Kelburn campus, drawing criticism.

SJP at VUW are calling for the university to terminate the prize, calling VUW’s partnership with Israel “unjust” because the political climate in Israel is “directly comparable” to Apartheid South Africa.

Read more

Filed Under: News, Opinion Tagged With: , ,
→ 20 June 2019
→ By
→ Leave a Comment

DOCEDGE FESTIVAL: “GAZA”: A REVIEW

 – A slanted take on life there

You would have thought that the collaboration between a Northern Irishman and his Republican counterpart (Garry Keane and Andrew McConnell) would yield a truthful insight into Gaza, that tiny 40km by 11km strip. They, after all, know what it’s like to come from different sides of a conflict, the importance of showing life accurately and should well know how “The Troubles” ended. Alas no. The documentary brief as outlined in the Doc Edge festival, was to show real life in Gaza, not just shapshots of war. In that they do in part, but without crucial explanation of key elements and all set to a very emotive score. It’s a story that began when Andrew McConnell went to Gaza to photograph surfers, so the sea plays a key role.

What we see is a collection of vignettes on the lives of different inhabitants and events that happen. The cast of characters is extremely varied with a great deal of emphasis on children who roam about and the role of the sea in their varied lives. We meet a taxi driver, a fisherman, a frustrated tailor, a man with three wives and 40 children, a theatre director, a vain lifeguard, a wealthy family with a sensitive child, a handicapped rapper, a paramedic et al. Thematically the documentary explores how people cope, living in what former British PM David Cameron described as an “open air prison” with unemployment standing at 50%, only 4-5 hours of power a day and undrinkable water.

What makes this documentary poignant is the UN has declared Gaza uninhabitable by 2020 – well that’s next year. Many watching this documentary will miss the points being shown; especially as it ends with a targeted Israeli attack and the consequent injuries and destroyed buildings invalidating the stated purpose. Meantime here are some questions unanswered:

  1. Why is there no reference to the impact of the Eqyptian border closure?
  2. Why does Israel get the blame for this situation not of their making? They withdrew.
  3. Why is there a refugee camp in Gaza, aren’t they all the same people?
  4. Where is the money coming from for food and supplies if there is no work?
  5. Why are women wearing the Hijab when they didn’t previously?
  6. Why aren’t some of the children going to school?
  7. Why only 4-5 hours of power?
  8. Who is responsible for fixing the utilities?
  9. Why does Hamas engage in indiscriminate shooting in the streets?
  10. Why are they handing out sweets to the crowds after the prisoner is released?
  11. Rubbish is everywhere. Yet people are sitting around playing cards, not cleaning up things? Don’t they care for their country? Is it someone else’s responsibility?
  12. Why are there posters of Yasser Arafat?
  13. Why aren’t bombed buildings fixed so people can go and live there. Isn’t that why they need concrete and building materials, so where is it going? Tunnels perhaps?
  14. Are all fishermen innocent people just catching fish?
  15. Why are they burning tyres and harming their health on the Israeli border alone?

By ending with an Israeli bombing and its aftermath, the documentary can only lead you to blame Israel for all Gazan woes.  Clearly, misleading.

About the Author:  Joanna Moss is a writer, researcher and the NZFOI Wellington Regional Coordinator.

Filed Under: Opinion Tagged With: , ,
→ 29 May 2019
→ By
→ Leave a Comment

How a ban on hate speech helped the Nazis | The Australian

Adolf Hitler

The Weimar Republic of the 30s had laws against “insulting religious communities”. They were used to prosecute hundreds of Nazi agitators, including Joseph Goebbels. Did it stop them? No. It helped them.

The Nazis turned their prosecutions for hate speech to their advantage, presenting themselves as political victims and whipping up public support among aggrieved sections of German society, their future social base. Far from halting Nazism, hate speech legislation assisted it.

It is surely time every hate speech law was repealed. They are a menace to free thought and speech, and the worst tool imaginable for fighting real hatred.

Read more

Filed Under: Opinion Tagged With: ,
→ 23 May 2019
→ By
→ Leave a Comment

No, Israel isn’t a country of privileged and powerful white Europeans | LA Times

Mizrahi Jews

Along with resurgent identity politics in the United States and Europe, there is a growing inclination to frame the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in terms of race. According to this narrative, Israel was established as a refuge for oppressed white European Jews who in turn became oppressors of people of color, the Palestinians.

As an Israeli, and the son of an Iraqi Jewish mother and North African Jewish father, it’s gut-wrenching to witness this shift.

I am Mizrahi, as are the majority of Jews in Israel today. We are of Middle Eastern and North African descent. Only about 30% of Israeli Jews are Ashkenazi, or the descendants of European Jews. I am baffled as to why mainstream media and politicians around the world ignore or misrepresent these facts and the Mizrahi story. Perhaps it’s because our history shatters a stereotype about the identity of my country and my people.

Jews that were expelled from nations across the Middle East have been crucial in building and defending the Jewish state since its outset.

Israel, the world’s only Jewish state, was not established for just one type of Jew but for all Jews, from every part of the world — the Middle East, North Africa, Ethiopia, Asia and, yes, Europe. No matter where Jews physically reside, they maintain a connection to the land of Israel, where our story started and where today we continue to craft it.

The likes of Women’s March activist Tamika Mallory, Temple University professor Marc Lamont Hill and, more recently, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) falsify reality in their discussions of Palestinians’ “intersectional” struggle, their use of the term “apartheid” to characterize Israeli policy, and their tendency to define Israelis as Ashkenazi Jews alone.

Read more

Filed Under: Opinion, Resources Tagged With: , , , , ,
→ 23 May 2019
→ By
→ Leave a Comment

The real goal of BDS is not to bring about a negotiated 2-state solution, it is to destroy Israel

“Ending the occupation doesn’t mean anything if it doesn’t mean upending the Jewish state itself…BDS does mean the end of the Jewish state. But can’t I see the value in reaching across the aisle, so to speak? The movement may be burgeoning but remains too small. Why shouldn’t we indulge in ad hoc partnerships to get things done? Richard Silverstein, Richard Goldstone, and many other self-proclaimed Zionists have done an immeasurably positive amount of work in skinning the Zionist cat (That’s a deliberate analogy. I don’t kid myself about how difficult it must be for a Jewish person to criticize the Zionist state), shouldn’t they be asked to join the BDS movement?

To be sure, I’m not dogmatically against cooperating with people whose views I find objectionable. If it came down to it, I’d be happy to work with the racist up the street to get the city to fix a neighborhood pothole.”

-Ahmed Moor,
Pro-BDS Author

Filed Under: Opinion
→ 19 May 2019
→ By
→ Leave a Comment

Law against hate speech helped Hitler’s rise | NZ Herald

Hate Speech Laws passed to suppress the Nazis, ironically paved the way for Nazis to burn books and do away with others who opposed them

Controversy around recently-cancelled talks in New Zealand raised important questions about free speech. Ostensibly it was threats of violence that led to speakers being “de-platformed” but there is a strong whiff of political bias. Either way, accusations of “hate speech” have been raised, and some commentators have suggested that we need laws against the expression of hateful ideas.

This is an argument that has been implicitly put forward by the Human Rights Commission with a special emphasis on “religious hate speech directed at Muslim New Zealanders” and is predicated on the assumption that we need to protect people from harmful words, much like we outlaw harm caused by physical violence.

There is no good evidence that offensive language or challenges to ideas, however provocative or unreasonable, creates such severe harm as to require legislation. However, there is reason to argue that direct threats or speech that incites direct violence should be illegal — and it is already prohibited under our existing laws (along with reasonable restrictions on defamation, and breaking contracts by sharing information or plagiarising). Advertisement

Yet, even with such a seemingly objective test as inciting violence it is even difficult to determine what is and is not speech that incites violence. For example, the Human Rights Commission did not think that shouting “…bash the Jewish, cut their heads off…” in an Auckland protest was worthy of investigation, let alone prosecution.

Read more

Filed Under: Opinion Tagged With: , , , ,
« Previous Page
Next Page »