Those who think they have the right to kill and punish
Members of the LDJ – a ‘Jewish militia’ – flex their muscles. See items 2 and4. LDJ’s photo
Meanwhile, Gideon Levy receives a death threat
A menacing letter mailed to Haaretz shows that it’s not only Islamic extremists who seek to blunt press freedom with violence.
By Gideon Levy, Haaretz
January 11, 2015
The European Court for Anti-Semitic Crimes. Court Execution squad.
Re: Proceedings against participants in anti-Israeli activities.
The Court has been asked to look at the activities against Israel by Gideon Levy, journalist.
Witness Number 1 showed the article ‘Lowest deeds from loftiest heights’ (Haaretz, July 15, 2014) … Chairman of the court: The court has been convinced that pro-Nazi propaganda has taken place. Once this has been proved, the court has no discretion whatsoever as to the verdict, therefore the above culprit is convicted to death. Given the amount of damage he created, his elimination should take place shortly. Death by ‘accident’: poison, wasps, snakes, viruses, etc.
P.S: The Pulsa Denura court has no connection with the Israeli security systems … This court is chasing the enemies of Israel wherever they are and verdicts are carried out by the court’s execution squads … Please place this letter in several places in your offices.
This letter, written in English, arrived last week at Haaretz, in an envelope mailed in Tel Aviv. This letter was not written by a Muslim. At the bottom was written: “Orange pips mean death.” Pips had been stuck to the other side of the letter.
A Sherlock Holmes story is called “The Five Orange Pips,” and revolves around a death-threat letter. This is not the first threat against an Israeli journalist, and not the last.
The attack on the Charlie Hebdo magazine last week was preceded by death threats. The massacre came in its wake. It could happen here, too. Anyone who was shocked by the attack on the freedom of the press in France needs to examine what is happening in Israel.
The Israeli media in general does not need threats. It enlisted a long time ago, of its own freewill, to serve the narrative and kingdom; to serve the consensus, the ratings, entertainment, and make the time pleasant for its consumers. Nothing has been forced upon it from above, not by the censor and not from coercion. Just plain commercial considerations, obedience, cowardice, and a basic lack of understanding of what its job is.
Only those who dare step out of line know how great and imminent the danger is, and how much it has increased recently.
The wave of terror in France against journalists and Jews, Israel promoted in a number of ways.* The usual security speculators sat in the studios and pontificated their advice to the amateurs of France. A few of them made fun of French law, which does not allow there what is done here. Others spoke about inexperience.
It is clear that these are experts who knew how to exterminate the terror in their own land, once and for all. Of course, they recommended all sorts of aggressive solutions to the French that are employed here – more forces, intelligence and assassinations.
And all of it was covered – how could it not be? – by a manifest feeling of joy that “now they will understand who we have to deal with,” and also Israel’s most popular current mantra: “Not all Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims.”
All terrorists are Muslims? Hmm. A few of the most horrifying acts of slaughter of recent years seem to have been forgotten. They were committed by white, Christian men, but who’s counting? In that case they are always “individuals” who acted alone, mentally ill and disturbed. Anders Breivik, who killed 75 people in Oslo and Utoya Island – is he a Muslim? And the series of massacres in the United States – at Columbine High School, at Sandy Hook Elementary School, and at Virginia Tech. Were all these perpetrated by Muslims?
Wholesome all-American boys Eric Harris and Dylan Kiebold shot dead 12 children and 1 teacher at Columbine High School, then shot themselves, on April 20, 1999. A fellow pupil shot dead 32, children and teachers at Virginia Polytechnic Institute on April 16, 2007. 20 children and 6 adult staff were shot dead at Sandy Hook elementary school by 20-year-old man in December 2012. Over 300 people, mostly children, have been shot dead in American schools, mostly by other children, since the 1990s. These massacres have not caused the majority of Americans to question the ‘right’ to own guns, nor the ideology of white male American teenagers.
No one attributed these acts to all white men, American or Norwegian. No one thought about Christian terror. And we did not say a word about the biggest spilling of blood in history, which happened not long ago, all of it purely on the enlightened continent, which then had almost no Muslims.
And the killing of journalists? It is also possible to remember that during Operation Protective Edge last summer, 13 were killed in Gaza.
The criminal terror committed by Islamic movements and individuals around the world is very worrying. It is necessary to fight it. But we also need to try to understand its intent and motives.
The attack on the press in France should also cause us to lose sleep, but we must remember what is happening in the meantime in Israel.
Here is another piece of mail I received last week, and this is not from a Muslim, either. “You spat on the People of Israel and God answered you. No child.” And nothing more needs to be said.
Calls mount to ban France’s ‘violent’ Jewish Defence League
By France24
July 29, 2014
Pressure is mounting on France to ban a far-right Jewish group, described as violent and extreme by critics, following its involvement in clashes at a pro-Palestinian protest in Paris and the jailing of two of its supporters over a bomb plot.
The Jewish Defence League, an international organisation dedicated to protecting Jews from antisemitism by “whatever means necessary”, has a long history of controversy and alleged acts of terrorism and has been outlawed in both the US and Israel.
But the latest conflict between Israel and Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip – and the passions it has stirred in support of both sides in France in recent weeks – has cast a new spotlight on the French division of the group, known as the Ligue de Défense Juive (LDJ).
An ‘extremist and racist association’
On July 13th, members of the group clashed with pro-Palestinian protesters outside a synagogue at a demonstration in Paris, sparking outrage in France and fears of a resurgence in antisemitism in France.
But witnesses later accused the LDJ of having provoked the violence.
The former head of France’s France-Palestine Solidarity (AFPS), Bernard Ravenel, told FRANCE 24 earlier this month that the “ LDJ were largely responsible” for the clashes.
“They turned up with the sole intention of provoking the crowd and the authorities interpreted this, sadly, as an antisemitic march. This is simply not true.”
On Monday, Abdallah Zekri, head of the National Observatory of Islamophobia, condemned the LDJ’s role in the violence as well as the French government for failing to take action against it.
“The LDJ is banned in Israel and the United States, it creates a lot of problems, including racist attacks … but the authorities do not denounce it with any force,’ he told the AFP news agency.
“I demand its dissolution. It is an extremist and racist association that practises violence. Organisations that practise violence, wherever they come from, must be dissolved.”
Supporters jailed over bomb attack
Later on Monday, it emerged that two LDJ supporters had been sentenced to prison in June for targeting the car of a Jewish man with a homemade bomb, prompting the victim’s lawyer to also demand the banning of the group.
The attack took place overnight on September 13, 2012, when a bomb made from a plastic bottle exploded near a car belonging to Jonathan Moadab, co-founder of the blog “Cercle des Volontaires (Circle of Volunteers)”, though it failed to cause any damage.
Earlier that year, Moadab’s blog had attacked the “French Zionist nebula” in one of its articles, AFP reported.
The letters “LDJ” and a Star of David were found written on the vehicle after the attack in the town of Saint-Rémy-lès-Chevreuse, around 30km southwest of Paris.
Moadab also reported receiving anonymous phone calls threatening to “kill you, your mother, your father and your brothers”.
Moadab’s lawyer, Dominique Cochain, accused the LDJ of not wanting to hear “Jewish voices diverging from unconditional support for Israeli policy”.
She compared the movement to a “militia”, which should be “banned”.
‘Strength, force and violence’
The French government has so far resisted calls for the group to be outlawed, despite comments by Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve earlier this week in which he accused the organisation of being “excessive” and of “reprehensible acts that should be condemned”.
Founded in 1968 by a rabbi from New York, Meir Kahane, the Jewish Defence League lists among its five ruling principles what it calls “Barzel” or “iron” – defined as “the need to both move to help Jews everywhere and to change the Jewish image through sacrifice and all necessary means – even strength, force and violence”.
It was listed as a terrorist organisation in the United States by the FBI in 2001, following the arrest of two of its members for conspiring to bomb a mosque in California as well as the offices of a congressman.
Its sister movements, Kach and Kahane Chai, were both outlawed in Israel in 1994 as terrorist organisations and deemed to pose a threat to national security.
The French branch, established in 2000, has also been involved in numerous controversies, including allegations of harassment and threats and of staging violent protests.
Frequent calls for it to be outlawed have been made in the past, including from political parties and anti-racism groups.
O
Gaza Strip: Are France’s JDL Jews with Muscles or Zionist Thugs?
By Umberto Bacchi, IB Times
August 07, 2014
The turmoil caused in France by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in Gaza has thrown the spotlight on a militant Jewish movement that has been accused of provoking communal violence in several incidents.
The French government said it was considering outlawing the Jewish Defence League (LDJ), which rose to national attention in July when a pro-Palestinian protest turned violent in Paris.
n 13 July, clashes erupted near a synagogue in the central Rue de la Roquette on the side-lines of demonstration against Israel’s military operation in Gaza.
A few hundred worshippers were reportedly trapped inside the religious site, which is located more than 500m away from Place de la Bastille – the pro-Palestinian rally’s ending spot – as troublemakers tried to attack the premises and were confronted by police.
Video footage later uploaded online, however, showed that moments before the clashes erupted dozens of pro-Israel youths, armed with chairs and batons, moved towards the pro-Palestinians yelling slogans and allegedly luring them into a confrontation.
As the pro-Gaza protesters charged, anti-riot police intervened, stepping in between the two groups.
The Ligue Defence Juive
The “provocateurs” were said to be members of the LDJ, a self-defence group styled after the controversial US movement founded by Rabbi Meir Kahane in the 1960s, with the purported goal of protecting Jews from anti-Semitism.
In the US the organisation was eventually deemed a right-wing terrorist group by the FBI in 2001, after two members were arrested over a plot to attack a mosque in California.
Its Israeli sister movements, the virulently racist Kach and Kahane Chai, were also banned.
After the clashes in Rue de la Roquette, the presence of LDJ members in France was also reported at other sites where communal tensions fuelled by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict erupted in violence.
In the northern Paris suburb of Sarcelles a small group of vigilantes patrolled the local synagogue cordoning it off from an angry mob of anti-Israel demonstrators who threatened to storm the building after attacking several Jewish-owned stores in town.
The LDJ – which is believed to count on up to 400 members in France – has also been accused of carrying out what in Israel are known as price-tag attacks, retaliatory strikes against non-Jews or their property.
France’s Collective against Islamophobia reported that a mosque in the southern city of Marseille was defaced by alleged LDJ members who sprayed the words: “Israel will live – LDJ watches” and a Star of David on the outside wall.
A photo was posted on Twitter by the collective’s spokesperson Elsa Ray.
@ElsaRay_CCIF
Follow
Mosquée du 15e à Marseille taguée par la LDJ. Ouh là, “le conflit” s’importe en France! Une petite réaction M.Valls?
6:05 PM – 1 Aug 2014
Opposition and support
French left-wing politicians and Muslim groups have thus called for the LDJ to be banned, saying it promotes violence and racism.
Lawmaker Jean-Jacques Candelier said the LDJ was a “criminal organisation” and described its members as “barbarians”.
He was echoed by Abdallah Zekri, the chairman of France’s Observatory against Islamophobia, who accused the LDJ of being an “extremist, racist group” and urged authorities to outlaw it.
On the other hand, the group surprisingly won the backing of France’s mainstream far-right Front National party, whose members – and in particular its founder, Jean-Marie Le Pen – have often been accused of anti-Semitism.
“If there is a Jewish Defence League it is because there is a large number of Jews who feel insecure,” Le Pen’s daughter Marine, the current leader of FN, told RTL radio. “They feel that a new anti-Semitism is mounting in France and that it has resulted in communal confrontations.”
Le Pen’s remark was arguably a political attack on the socialist government’s security policy, which she claims is too relaxed.
Nevertheless her view seemed to be shared by many members of Jewish community, who justify the existence of the muscular vigilante group by citing a rise in anti-Semitism.
“They do well,” Jeremy Timsit, a restaurant owner in Sarcelles, told IBTimes UK. “It is a group that protects people who are weak. Today [in France] we need to defend ourselves and take things in hand.”
Security has become a primary concern for the French Jewish community, particularly after a 2012 shooting, in which four Jews – including three children – and three soldiers were killed by 23-year-old French Islamist Mohamed Merah in Toulouse.
“Those children were killed because they were Jewish,” Elie Korchia, the vice-president of the Israelite Central Consistory of France, told IBTimes UK at a large rally in support of Israel in central Paris last week.
The demonstration itself was held under tight security. Hundreds of police officers were deployed and were assisted by young men with portable radios who were said to be part of the demonstration security service.
They checked documents and controlled who was getting into the restricted area in front of the Israeli embassy where the gathering was held.
They all denied being LDJ member and, although none wanted to say what group they were from – with one claiming it was a secret organisation – they were most likely members of the Protection Service of the Jewish Community, a security body affiliated to the French Jewish association umbrella group known as CRIF (Council of French Jewish Institutions).
Hours before the demonstration, France’s Interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve hinted that the government could take action against the LDJ, saying that all “groups that can be the cause of troubles” will be banned.
Korchia dismissed the controversy by saying the LDJ was a non-problem that was being used to attack the Jewish community, portraying all its members as extremists.
“It’s a group of a few dozen people that do not represent the Jewish community,” he said.
“Those who criticise the LDJ are trying to broadcast the idea that there are extremists on both sides. But the reality is that today, extremists who smash stores and attack police are not among the Jewish community.”
* see for instance Israelis tell ‘cowardly’ Europeans: we told you so