Tag Archives: antisemitism

Haaretz: The anti-Semitism that goes unreported

By Amira Hass: Haaretz, 18 July 2012

Tens of thousands of people live in the shadow of terror

Here’s a statistic that you won’t see in research on anti-Semitism, no matter how meticulous the study is. In the first six months of the year, 154 anti-Semitic assaults have been recorded, 45 of them around one village alone. Some fear that last year’s record high of 411 attacks – significantly more than the 312 attacks in 2010 and 168 in 2009 – could be broken this year.

Fifty-eight incidents were recorded in June alone, including stone-throwing targeting farmers and shepherds, shattered windows, arson, damaged water pipes and water-storage facilities, uprooted fruit trees and one damaged house of worship. The assailants are sometimes masked, sometimes not; sometimes they attack surreptitiously, sometimes in the light of day.

There were two violent attacks a day, in separate venues, on July 13, 14 and 15. The words “death” and “revenge” have been scrawled in various areas; a more original message promises that “We will yet slaughter.” Continue reading

The Atlantic: Neo-McCarthyism

The Atlantic, Jul 15, 2012 by Robert Wright

The charge of anti-Semitism is starting to lose its force. The reason is that over the past few years it’s been applied with less and less discernment, largely by people who want to stigmatize Israel’s harsher critics. As Sarah Wildman has noted in the Forward, this is very unfortunate, because there are real anti-Semites in the world, and they benefit when the label they deserve to bear no longer has the power to stigmatize.

Wildman said this six months ago while writing about a slew of smears, such as the attempt to stigmatize the Center for American Progress via half-truths and McCarthyite guilt-by-association. Now there’s another example of this neo-McCarthyism, and I’m sorry to say that it appeared on this website. Continue reading

Mondoweiss: When is someone going to lose his job for calling someone an anti-Semite?

By Philip Weiss, Apr 13, 2012, Mondoweiss

A noble statement, Peter Beinart to Chemi Shalev in Haaretz a few weeks back (emphasis Mondoweiss):

“I want people, non-Jewish Americans, to have opinions about this like they have opinions about anything else. They may be wrong, they may be stupid, they may be ignorant. Let them have their opinions. And don’t call them anti-Semites unless they have a history of animus toward the Jewish people.

“The problem is that we have a Jewish organizational world whose business model is anti-Semitism, and there’s not enough of it in the United States. So they have to keep looking for it in the Israel debate, when what’s going on is not anti-Semitism. And it upsets me a great deal that American Jewish leaders never have to pay the price. Nobody ever loses their job for getting up on the wrong side of the bed one morning, reading an op-ed they don’t like, and then saying that that person is an anti-Semite. And you should lose your job for that. There should be consequences for that. The pain of being called an anti-Semite in this post-Holocaust world, when you’re not, is just agonizing to watch, frankly.”

http://mondoweiss.net/2012/04/when-is-someone-going-to-lose-his-job-for-calling-someone-an-anti-semite.html

Electronic Intifada: Campaign to smear Haaretz as “enemy” of Israel underway

Electronic Intifada, Ali Abunimah, 01/19/2012
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was quick to deny comments attributed to him that The New York Times and Haaretz are Israel’s greatest enemies. But despite his denials, there are signs that right-wing Zionist groups, funded by large donations from the United States, are preparing to launch a major campaign to smear Jewish Israeli journalists who are perceived as being too critical or disloyal as feeding “anti-Semitism.”

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London FreePress: Deal pending, Corrigan says

LIBEL LAWSUIT: Lawyer Ed Corrigan says a T.O. lawyer will apologize for his e-mails

By Scott Taylor, The London Free Press, January 16, 2012

A London human-rights lawyer and former city councillor who sued a Toronto lawyer for $25,000 in libel damages said a settlement is just days away.

The case began in June 2010 when Ed Corrigan asked Toronto lawyer and investment firm president William Hechter to apologize for several e-mails he reportedly sent to members of the Law Union of Ontario in which he described Corrigan as one of Canada’s worst anti-Semites and an idiotic spammer.

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Law Times: Israeli issue sparks legal row between lawyers

Law Times, Monday, January 16, 2012, Written by Kendyl Sebesta

A London, Ont., immigration lawyer is seeking $25,000 in libel damages from a fellow lawyer who allegedly called him an anti-Semite.

Lawyer Edward Corrigan is seeking $25,000 from William Hechter.

The case, Corrigan v. Hechter, began in September 2010 as lawyer Edward Corrigan sought damages from William Hechter, a non-practising lawyer who’s president of Excalibur Capital Management in Toronto.

The case involves Hechter’s alleged comments in response to Corrigan’s statements about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

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