Simon Wiesenthal Center disclosed its annual top ten list of the worst outbreaks of antisemitic and anti-Israel incidents, including lethal Jew-hatred in the US and Germany. Wiesenthal announced that the now-defeated British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn was ranked number one for mainstream antisemitism in the UK. The Center wrote that it ”released its #1 choice for its Top Ten 2019 list five days before the UK election. Corbyn’s Labour was trounced by PM Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party in the December 12th elections. Some analysts say that antisemitism impacted the voters. Corbyn has resigned as leader of the Labour Party.” In fact, Corbyn termed the antisemitic jihadi organizations Hezbollah and Hamas his “friends.” The Center listed the lethal antisemitic attacks in Jersey City and in Halle, Germany as the next worst outbreaks of Jew-hatred. “In Jersey City, New Jersey, a kosher market was the target of domestic terrorists. David Anderson and Francine Graham were adherents of the Black Hebrew Israelites hate group. Anderson had expressed anti-police and antisemitic sentiments. The shooters first killed a police officer, then unleashed a barrage of gunfire killing three innocent people inside the kosher store. Only quick and heroic action taken by police prevented an even greater massacre, as an adjacent yeshiva [school] would have been their next target,” wrote the Center. Wiesenthal wrote that “some 80 Jews praying in a German Synagogue on Yom Kippur – Judaism’s holiest day – miraculously escaped certain injury or death at the hands of a neo-Nazi when the attacker failed to break down a security door outside a synagogue in Halle, Germany. After failing to enter the synagogue, Stephan Balliet, 27, armed with a submachine gun and explosives killed 2 civilians nearby and injured 2 others. Balliet admitted that he was motivated by his hatred of Jews.” The Center lambasted the German authorities for the lax security. “Despite surging antisemitic acts, German authorities failed to post any security outside the synagogue during Yom Kippur services.” The entry also listed the San Diego gunman who “opened fire on Jews at prayer inside a Chabad synagogue in San Diego County, killing 60-year-old Lori Gilbert-Kaye, and wounding the rabbi.” The shooter announced that he was “defending our nation against the Jewish people, who are trying to destroy all white people.” The third spot went to the antisemitic death threats targeting the “Eighty-nine year-old Auschwitz survivor Liliana Segre, who serves as Senator for Life in the Italian Parliament.” The Center reported that, after launching a national commission to end bigotry, she received death threats via social media. Two policemen were assigned to protect her round the clock. As number four on the Center’s list, French prosecutors were cited for “dropping murder charges against Kobili Traore, who mercilessly beat Sarah Halimi, a Jewish kindergarten teacher, and then threw her off her balcony. Authorities outrageously decided that the murderer had suffered a ‘massive psychotic episode’ after smoking marijuana. When Traore broke into Halimi’s apartment, he recited Quranic verses while attacking the Jewish woman.” The Center wrote that Traore claimed, ‘I felt persecuted. When I saw the Torah and a chandelier in her home, I felt oppressed.’” American Muslim Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, America’s first Congresswoman of Palestinian descent, and IIhan Omar, a Muslim Congresswoman, earned spot number five for their “slander of Israel and Jews.” The Center wrote that Tlaib “launched her career in the US House of Representatives by slandering colleagues who supported a resolution seeking to weaken the anti-Israel, Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement when she tweeted, ‘They forgot what country they represent.’ That resolution also called for sanctions on funders of the criminal Assad regime in Syria.” Tlaib also reportedly falsified history, declaring that she had “warm feelings about the way Palestinians ‘provided’ a homeland for Holocaust survivors… ‘I love the way my ancestors provided that…’” The Center said that Omar “similarly invoked the dual loyalty canard by declaring that “I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is okay to push for allegiance to a foreign country.” Omar “echoed a pernicious antisemitic theme about ‘Jewish money’ invoked by Hitler and other antisemites,” stating that “it’s all about the Benjamins baby.” She also wrote on Twitter that US politicians are controlled by AIPAC. Spot number six was the lack of political response to violence against Jews in New York City. The Center wrote that in “November, NYPD Commissioner James P. O’Neill reported that Jews were victims of more than half of the hate crimes in the city with the largest Jewish population in the world. Of 309 reported incidents, 159 targeted Jews. Beatings of Jews, particularly in the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Crown Heights and Borough Park, drew national attention but scant action was taken by politicians in response to the beatings.” Germany’s Ambassador to the United Nations Christoph Heusgen earned spot number seven. The Post exclusively reported on his spot in the list last week. “Germany is in the midst of an 18-month stint on the UN Security Council. Its UN Ambassador, Christoph Heusgen, created an uproar after word spread regarding the number of anti-Israel votes he has cast and by his equating 130 rockets fired by terrorist organization, Hamas, at Israeli civilians in one week in March, with the Jewish state’s demolition of terrorists’ homes,” noted the Wiesenthal Center. Heusgen declared, “We believe that international law is the best way to protect civilians and allow them to live in peace and security and without fear of Israeli bulldozers or Hamas rockets.” Bild, Germany’s best selling newspaper accused Heusgen in an editorial of “pure malice” against the Jewish State. Wiesenthal wrote that Heusgen cast “sixteen anti-Israel votes at the UN in 2018, abstaining once. In 2019, he voted for nine anti-Israel resolutions, including one labeling Jerusalem’s holiest sites as ‘Palestinian Occupied Territory,’ while abstaining three times and opposing only one anti-Israel resolution.” The eighth spot went to the statement that “elite North American Universities have proven fertile ground for anti-Semitism often cloaked as ‘anti-Zionism’ and protected under the rubric of free speech.” The Center cited the University of Toronto’s Graduate Student Union’s denial of a “Jewish student’s request to support a campaign to offer kosher food on campus, saying, ‘I doubt the Executive Committee will be comfortable recommending this motion given that the organization hosting it [Hillel] is openly pro-Israel.”’ The entry noted that “Montreal’s McGill University Student Society initially threatened to impeach a Jewish member, Jordyn Wright, for accepting an invitation to visit Israel under the auspices of Hillel. Pro-BDS students ultimately failed to force the second-year student to cancel her trip to the Jewish State. Similarly, a November event organized by Jewish students at Toronto’s York University, which featured young Israeli soldiers, was protested with a ‘no killers on campus’ campaign organized by anti-Israel groups.” According to Wiesenthal, “leading US schools including Columbia, Barnard, NYU, Vassar, Duke, UNC, Oberlin, ASU and UCLA are only a few of the US schools to be confronted by anti-Israel and antisemitic incidents this year – often spawned by the extreme anti-Israel, anti-peace, BDS movement.” Syracuse University was cited due to the “sixteen incidents in November, including racist vandalism in residence halls where vicious graffiti targeted African Americans, Jews, Asians and others.” Spot number nine listed the Scandinavian countries of Denmark and Sweden. “On the 81st anniversary of the November 9th ‘Night of Broken Glass’ when most German synagogues were burned down by the Nazis, neo-Nazis plastered stickers shaped like yellow stars on multiple Jewish sites in Denmark and Sweden.” The Center noted that “while Jews make up no more than one-fifth of 1% of Sweden’s population, more than 4% of all hate incidents in the country target Jews. Swedish authorities allowed neo-Nazis to rally in Raoul Wallenberg Square across from Stockholm’s Main Synagogue. Sweden fails to protect its Jewish citizens and institutions and has failed to hold antisemites accountable for their actions in the public and private sectors, including at its famed Karolinska Hospital.” Rick Wiles, a non-denominational, Florida-based pastor, earned the tenth spot for using his radio program to boost ”racist and antisemitic conspiracy theories.” He labeled the House impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump a “Jew coup.” In November, Wiles said, “That’s the way the Jews work. They are deceivers. They plot. They lie. They do whatever they’ve had to do to accomplish their political agenda,” and, “should the Jews take over the country, they will conduct a purge… That’s the next thing that happens when Jews take over a country – they kill millions of Christians.” Wiles said he has 87 thousand Facebook followers and nearly 60 thousand on Twitter.Source
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