Europe, Germany and Krake Zuckerberg

...Yet the very fact that Germans now feel disembarrassed enough to broadcast their anti-Israelism as boldly as the rest of Europe, allows them to bask in smug ostensible righteousness. They thereby catapult themselves – in their own eyes obviously – onto the moral high-ground. They had dutifully performed the perfunctory breast-beating, learned to recite standard liberal banalities and, having invested all that effort, now feel spotless and irreproachable. Indeed they aren’t only vindicated, they are morally superior.

Krake Zuckerberg (Octopus Zuckerberg):
its distinctive face makes sure that we
don’t lose sight of Zuckerberg’s Jewishness.

Sarah Honig..
Another Tack..
07 March '14..

Most German publications no longer even pretend any wariness about coming off as anti-Jewish. Gone are the days when Germans had to at least appear a tad more cautious than their fellow Europeans. The latter reverted quickly enough to their old Jew-baiting habits but the Germans have willy-nilly caught up.

A cogent example is being consistently provided by Munich’ s left-liberal Sueddeutsche Zeitung, which also happens to be Germany’s largest broadsheet daily. It recently featured a cartoon lampooning Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg after his outfit had acquired WhatsApp. The idea was to show Zuckerberg as a voracious octopus that swallows up everything around it. The caption at the bottom left-hand corner of the cartoon clearly read “Krake Zuckerberg” (German for Octopus Zuckerberg.) Up to this point, it’s tolerable criticism.

But the octopus, as drawn by cartoonist Burkhard Mohr, was also given quite a distinctive face. Its function, presumably, was to make sure we don’t lose sight of the fact that young Zuckerberg – innovative enough to have given the world a social network which millions of Germans also use – is a Jew. To that end, Mohr portrayed him with a preposterous hook-nose and thick fish-lips – as per the freakish stereotype sinisterly ascribed to Jews by their tormentors.

The most glaring example was Julius Streicher’s Nazi-era Der Stürmer which surpassed all competitors in caricaturing Jews as hook-nosed spiteful grotesques. However, while Der Stürmer was the worst, it wasn’t alone. In fact, it’s still seemingly unobjectionable all over the globe to gratuitously picture Jews in Der Stürmer style.

The Arab world, beloved by ardent liberals, has long specialized in this genre of demonizing and degrading misrepresentations of Jews.

Even in sterling democracies, like Britain and the US, we routinely see much of the same. It’s as if this is the stock depiction of the Jew and nothing else will drive home the identity of the targeted individual and/or group. A Jew can be as dashingly handsome as the late Moshe Dayan was, but still be portrayed as a repulsive Der Stürmer Jew – lest there be any misapprehension.

And so, a baby-face like Zuckerberg, who looks nothing like Mohr’s hideous ogre, must be given the mandatory hook nose so no one misses the message.

Herein lies the crux of the problem.

James Jones Apologies for Jewish Joke

Jennifer Rubin
Contentions/Commentary
26 April '10

As I noted in this morning’s Flotsam and Jetsam, James Jones made a tasteless Jewish joke last week at the 25th anniversary of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Fox News reports: “Interestingly, it was not included in the official White House-provided transcript of the speech.” Indeed.

(Click here for video)

There has been some additional reaction — New York Magazine has a roundup of those who have commented on it. Now, sensing the brewing storm, Jones has apologized. Politico provides Jones’s statement today:

I wish that I had not made this off the cuff joke at the top of my remarks, and I apologize to anyone who was offended by it. It also distracted from the larger message I carried that day: that the United States commitment to Israel’s security is sacrosanct.

Ben Smith also reports, “White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Monday that the White House had ‘no intention to deceive’ in leaving the remarks off a transcript off the event, which he said were in fact the prepared text. He said the White House hadn’t asked for Jones’ apology which ‘rightly speaks for itself.’”

Let’s unpack this. First of all, I don’t believe the joke was made up on the spur of the moment. That’s not how these things work. As a reader pointed out to me, it’s quite likely that not only Jones but also a speechwriter or two thought there was nothing much wrong with this. Second, for an administration under criticism for insensitivity or outright animus in relation to Israel, why play with fire? If nothing else, this confirms the criticism of Jones — he’s a bit of a buffoon.

And finally, why didn’t the president demand an apology? Was he not alarmed that his national security adviser is cracking Jewish-merchant jokes?

It’s another reminder that what is said and done in this White House with regard to Israel would not be said or done in virtually any other administration.

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Obama's National Security Advisor's Joke

Jameel
The Muqata
26 April '10

President Obama's National Security Adviser, Jim Jones told the following joke, where he received lots of laughs from the audience...



Find this funny? Appropriate? Important point to note is that the audience in this case is the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Some of the posted comments posted on "The Muqata" page were questioning where this was said.

Click here for Jameel's post and follow-up comments.

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Not all Euro-elites are anti-Israel

Clarice Feldman
American Thinker
05 Februray '10

Catalonian journalist Pilar Rahola breaks with the European elites in offering up a strong defense of Israel.

In a speech too full of smart thinking to be summarized, she defends Israel against its foolish and unfair detractors in European governments and the press:

Orphan of a reasonable left, orphan of serious journalism, orphan of a decent UN, and orphan of a tolerant Islam, Israel suffers the paradigm of the 21st Century: the lack of a solid commitment with the values of liberty. Nothing seems strange. Jewish culture represents, as no other does, the metaphor of a concept of civilization which suffers today attacks on all flanks. You are the thermometer of the world's health. Whenever the World has had totalitarian fever, you have suffered. In the Spanish Middle Ages, in Christian persecutions, in Russian pogroms, in European Fascism, in Islamic fundamentalism. Always, the first enemy of totalitarianism has been the Jew. And, in these times of energy dependency and social uncertainty, Israel embodies, in its own flesh, the eternal Jew.

A pariah nation among nations, for a pariah people among peoples. That is why the antisemitism of the 21st Century has dressed itself with the efficient disguise of anti-Israelism, or its synonym, anti-Zionism. All criticism against Israel is antisemitism? NO. But all present-day antisemitism has turned into prejudice and the demonization of the Jewsih State. New clothes for an old hatred.

Full speech in translation on her website can be read here
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Israel is Europe's blind spot

Many have been seduced by a false Islamic narrative. In fact, the more concessions Israel makes, the more it is attacked

Isi Leibler
guardian.co.uk
26 November 2009

I recently met with a group of Australian journalists, including editors of some of the leading dailies. They impressed me as a fair and open-minded group. In the course of discussions, one elegantly phrased question, not intended to offend, was put to me, which I have been mulling over.

"Did I ever take into account that if virtually the entire world has concluded that Israel is the principal cause for the Middle East impasse, perhaps they are right?"

The question is particularly pertinent in relation to Europe, which has turned so dramatically against Israel. In these "enlightened", postmodernist secular societies, which shun all manifestations of nationalism, Israel is no longer considered a revival of Jewish nationhood, but as a colonial implant that many would be happy to see somehow disappearing as a national entity. And, of course, there is the "new antisemitism" in which demonisation of Israel has become the surrogate for traditional Jew hatred – just as Jews in the middle ages were blamed for all the ills of mankind, so today the Jewish state is increasingly held responsible for the principal woes facing humanity.

In this environment, the left and many liberals now focus their rage against Israel and have succeeded in hijacking human rights groups to serve as vehicles to undermine the Jewish state.

On the international arena, the automatic majority of Islamic and other radical states guarantees the passage of all anti-Israeli resolutions initiated at the UN, no matter how absurd. The so-called UN human rights council (UNHRC), which includes some of the worst tyrannies among its leading members, is just one example.

Simultaneously, the realpolitik imposed by oil-producing countries when securing energy has become the national priority for most nations, together with the growing empowerment of radical Islamic groups throughout Europe, has resulted in many countries siding against Israel, rather than confront the jihadists within their own borders.

(Read full article)