Ethnic Cleansing / Land Theft & Destruction / Occupation & Apartheid / Exile & Restriction of Movement / Refugees

Report: Israel issued 13,000 demolition orders against Palestinian real estate
Haaretz newspaper said the Israeli civil administration issued 13,000 demolition warnings against Palestinians accused of unlicensed construction in Area C of the West Bank.
link to www.palestine-info.co.uk

Israeli military order expels Palestinian family from its land
The Israeli occupation forces expelled on Friday a Palestinian family from an area south of Al-Khalil, claiming that it is a closed military zone in which Palestinians are not allowed to live.
link to www.palestine-info.co.uk

How much does Israel drive the discussion here? Inter Press reports that the talks broke down because the U.S. took the Israeli hardline and said to Iran, you'll get no relief from sanctions even if you agree to the international demand not to enrich uranium to 20 percent. Writes Gareth Porter:

"[The] inflexible U.S. diplomatic posture... reflects President Barack Obama's need to bow to the demands of Israel and the U.S. Congress on Iran policy."

Even the Times hints at this idea:

Several accounts in Iran’s state-controlled media compared the positions taken by Tehran’s interlocutors in Baghdad to those of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, which considers Iran’s nuclear program an existential threat.

Jim Lobe anticipated this outcome when he said that neoconservatives had "blitz"-ed the Obama administration in the runup to the talks. He referred to reports by the American Enterprise Institute saying Iran is on the verge of producing weapons-grade uranium and the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies saying there must be no nuclear enrichment in Iran, period. Apparently the Obama administration was listening:

After the Istanbul meeting [in April], Western officials suggested there could be some easing of economic sanctions against Iran...

But during the past week, U.S. and Western diplomats appear to have taken a harder line. ...

"They have to stop all enrichment," Netanyahu told CNN on the eve of the Baghdad talks, adding that Iran should also be compelled to "dismantle the underground bunker" at Fordow.

Neo-conservatives and other hawks here have faithfully echoed that position with growing urgency as the Baghdad meeting approache...

In an election year, the neoconservatives are apparently pushing on an open door. The Obama administration's obedience is indicated in this statement yesterday from the State Department:

Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman will travel to Tel Aviv, Israel on May 25 for consultations on bilateral and regional issues with senior officials and to reaffirm our unshakeable commitment to Israel's security.

Sherman was formerly a leading moderate voice in the administration. Last fall she was urging the Senate not to up sanctions on Iran because sanctions were working and the goal was a diplomatic solution involving the P5+1-- the very body now undermined in the Baghdad talks. Sherman also argued that sanctions would drive oil costs too high. She continued to sound the moderate when she announced a website reaching out to Iranians: "saying to the Iranian people – to Iran’s Government itself, as High Representative Cathy Ashton did in her recent letter to Iranian officials, that we remain open to having serious discussions about their nuclear program if they are indeed serious and ready to have those discussions without preconditions." But the talks broke down, and Sherman hies unto Tel Aviv.

According to the newspaper, Vice President Joseph Biden told a gathering of the powerful Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations that the U.S. will soon be sending a group of senior policy and security officials to Israel.  The Americans will be coordinating positions for the Iran negotiations with the Israelis.

Ironically quoting Dennis Ross, the world’s foremost expert on U.S.-Israel cooperation, Ha'aretz indicates that Israel will have significant influence on the U.S. positions at the Iran negotiations.

Various officials explained today that the Obama administration is working in coordination with Israel concerning the steps that are being demanded from Iran.  President Obama’s former advisor, Dennis Ross, told Ha’aretz that “it is not accidental that Defense Minister Ehud Barak came to Washington last week.  I am certain that the aim of his visit was to be part of this dialog.  The Israeli position has a certain influence on our position; there is no intention to surprise [the Israelis].”

It seems that if the U.S. was interested in compromising with the Iranians, they would not be so dismissive of the expected agreement with the IAEA.  Also, the Obama administration would not be so publicly including the Israelis, who daily  insist Iran cannot be trusted to adhere to any agreement and who are seeking unrealistic concessions from Tehran.

Many will claim that this show of unity will scare the Iranians into compliance with Western demands.   I do not agree.  There was much talk of confidence-building after the first round in Istanbul.  Talking tough and bringing in the Israelis is not going to encourage Tehran to trust the U.S.  That lack of trust could prove to be the fatal blow to obtaining a diplomatic solution.

I am starting to get the sickening feeling that as was the case with Iraq, the U.S. is not going to Baghdad to make peace, but rather as a prelude to increased sanctions. And if that does not force Iranian capitulation, then it will mean the use of either U.S. or Israeli military force.

Many in the political and military establishments say:  Why should we negotiate when we can get what we want by using force?  That was Vice President Dick Cheney’s response after hearing of Iran’s very credible offer to start negotiations at the time of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan.  Of course, talking with Tehran was not on the Israeli or pro-Israel lobby’s agenda at the time.  It still is not.

It is starting to look a lot like Iraq.  The same people are pushing for war. The same undemonstrated charges about weapons of mass destruction are being made. 

I hope I am wrong, but I just do not have a good feeling about all this tough talk by the U.S., the five other states in the P5 + 1, and Israel, a day before the next critical round of negotiations begin. 

It does nothing to build confidence that the talks will succeed.

In a post on Bill Kristol's appearance in New York, Scott McConnell reminds us that George W. Bush called Kristol and Charles Krauthammer "the bomber boys" because they pressured him to bomb Iran. McConnell says the neocons may have had George W. Bush wrapped up, but he had real misgivings about them.

I just got Bush's book, Decision Points (2010). And it shows some real passive-aggressive tendencies with respect to the neocons.

Here's Bush's sole reference to neocon Paul Wolfowitz, during a post-911 meeting on Afghanistan:

At one point, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz suggested that we consider confronting Iraq as well as the Taliban.... [Saddam's regime] had a long record of supporting terrorism, including paying the families of Palestinian suicide bombers.... Colin cautioned against it.

Oh so it was Wolfie's stupid idea. And it was because of Palestinians suicide bombers.

Here's Bush's sole reference to neocon Elliott Abrams, during the runup to the Iraq war in 2003:

Two of our biggest concerns were starvation and refugees.... An estimated two million Iraqis could be displaced from their homes during war. On January 15, Elliott Abrams, a senior NSC staffer, delivered a detailed briefing on our preparations. We planned to prestation food, blankets, medicine, tents, etc.

Translation: Abrams told me everything was under control.

Here's some other great advice Bush got. It's his sole reference to Elie Wiesel:

In the winter of 2003, I sought opinions on Iraq from a variety of sources.... One of the most fascinating people I met with was Elie Wiesel, the author, Holocaust survivor, and deserving Nobel Prize recipient. Elie is a sober and gentle man. But there was passion in his seventy-four-year-old eyes when he compared Saddam Hussein's brutality to the Nazi genocide. "Mr. President," he said, "you have a moral obligation to act against evil." The force of his conviction affected me deeply. Here was a man who had devoted his life to peace urging me to intervene in Iraq...

I've always wondered why many critics of the war did not acknowledge the moral argument made by people like Elie Wiesel.

Well because it was unhinged, Mr. President, as you note yourself. 

Neocons Fred Kagan, Eliot Cohen, and Robert Kaplan all get namechecked too, as war supporters at a time when Baghdad is "hell, Mr. President."

Curiously, there are no references in the book to Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, Bernard Lewis, David Wurmser, David Frum, Bill Kristol or that other bomber boy Charles Krauthammer re war policy.

George Bush seems to want to forget his neocon captivity as a bad dream. Frum came up with the term "axis of evil"! But he gets no airtime?!

Oh, by the way, Bush does say that he and Condi Rice solved the Israel Palestinian conflict.

By the time I left, the Palestinians had a president and prime minister who rejected terrorism. The Israelis had withdrawn from some settlements and supported a two-state solution. And Arab nations were playing an active role in the peace process.

No sweat. Time for horseshoes!

P.S. I blame the neocons too. It was their idea, and almost all of them cited Palestinian suicide bombers, as if that was our problem. But someone had to execute their theory...

Every time I go into the Jewish community to hear a discussion of the issue, I am reminded that the Jewish community on its own is incapable of moving forward. This week I am still reeling from seeing Bill Kristol hold forth at a debate at Bnai Jeshurun synagogue on the Upper West Side last Tuesday [a short portion of which is above]. He came off as what he is, a Republican Party warlord; and he was treated like royalty. The rabbi said he was proud to host Kristol, and Jeremy Ben-Ami of J Street said he wanted to take Kristol with him to the West Bank, and moderator Jane Eisner of the Forward was very respectful, though she got in a jab at Kristol's "smear" tactics at the Emergency Committee for Israel.

When Kristol gave the self-congratulatory riff from which I’ve gotten my headline—about how all the elements hostile to Israel inside the Republican Party were purged over the last 30 years – no one dared to question the power of the Israel lobby.

Or when Kristol lectured Ben-Ami for being outside the mainstream of the Democratic Party, no one pointed out that Kristol is a Republican, and who is he to enforce a pro-Israel line inside the Democratic Party? Well because he has power in the Jewish community, and support for Israel in our community transcends party, that's why.

There was a sense that we are all on the same side because we are communal Jews and everyone in that community is a Zionist. "We've won the war, we won the war" Jeremy Ben-Ami proclaimed; 99 percent of Congress now has "deep" support for the special relationship between Israel and the U.S.

But as for the war that Bill Kristol pushed, the Iraq war, no one was so impolite as to bring that up, let alone Kristol's counsel to George W. Bush to remove Saddam Hussein because "Israel’s fight against terrorism is our fight." The words neoconservative, apartheid and Peter Beinart also were not uttered. 

Kristol was the most charming figure on the dais. He had the line of the night when he said, "I hope the organization [J Street] continues to flourish and to have no effect on actual US policy." I walked out feeling like I’d just seen the Knights of Columbus having a party for Tony Soprano.

The news coming out of the event last week was that Kristol endorsed Obama’s Middle East policy—that is, once Obama abandoned the Cairo speech of 2009 for the AIPAC speech of two months back.

“I can mostly support the Obama administration of the last two years after they gave up their foolish efforts…. to cause a huge diplomatic crisis… I think the Obama administration has moved to the center… After the terrible failure [to support the Green revolution in Iran in 2009]…he’s come down on my side…I’m happy to sit here and agree with President Obama to a considerable degree at least as the policy has moved in the last two years with respect to Israel and the middle east..”

And why did Obama capitulate? Because of people like Bill Kristol. Kristol was freaked out by Obama’s early stances, and particularly by Obama's belief that he had the support of the Jewish community. This was Ben-Ami's "great achievement," Kristol said: creating a perception that the whole Jewish community was moving to the J Street position. The Emergency Committeee for Israel was born to exert pressure the other way.

Here Ben-Ami offered his strongest criticism. After saying that “We’ve won the war" and only "far outliers" in Congress criticize Israel, he said that Bill Kristol was too much of an enforcer for Israel with American politicians. They are "live in fear" of speaking out. There’s an “atmosphere of fear” and “intimidation” that has caused hundreds of congresspeople not to speak their true minds.

"You’ve pushed the debate too far, you have the impact of silencing people on a policy question."

He explained this in communal terms. You have, Ben-Ami said, "turned criticism of policy into a question of whether someone is anti-Israel," and this tactic blurred an "important line in the Jewish communal conversation"-- the line where "criticism" crosses into "delegitimization of Israel." So when Kristol attacked a congressman as anti-Israel for opposing Israel's ban on coriander entering the Gaza Strip, he was signalling to the community that the politician was delegitimizing Israel, and serious people believed him, a form of hysteria that is bad for America and bad for Israel and bad for the Jewish community too.

Kristol fought back. Those coriander Congressmen were "trashing Israel" and the J Street position was outside the "mainstream of the pro-Israel community." When 54 members of Congress sign a critical letter, or 30 members vote against the overwhelming majority of Congress on a pro-Israel resolution, "we are entitled to say that as a matter of fact this person took a position that is not in the majority position of the Democratic party and a lot of serious people think would be a position that would damage the security of the state of Israel." 

Ben-Ami said Kristol is trying to "quelch debate." Those 50 members who dare to criticize Israel are the courageous ones. "Another 200 are scared to do it..."

Kristol laughed and dared him to name names. Ben-Ami said he can't give names because the politicians are afraid. Kristol said it was the New York Times and NPR and J Street on one side and “little old ECI" on the other.

Ben-Ami: "I very seriously and absolutely do believe that a significant percentage of American members of the House of Representatives and the Senate are intimidated on this issue... They worry about the ramifications of speaking out.... They are worried about the attacks that they will receive."

So the Israel lobby has gone too far, Ben-Ami is saying. This is the same man who when Walt and Mearsheimer wrote about the Israel lobby's hammerlock on US policymaking in the Middle East, said it smacked of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

Because they weren't Jews. Because by and large, Jews are afraid to share our "communal" conversation. Eisner said that some in the audience had written on their question cards that maybe the Jewish community should be more “circumspect” about having this debate, because it would arm the anti-Semites. Sp a journalist suggests that we should be more circumspect. But what is the truth? What is making US policy? What are the "ramifications" of a politician criticizing Israel? Aren't Jews strong enough here to have this conversation? It would have been nice if Ben-Ami or Eisner could have asked Kristol about how he derives his power-- how he buys a full-page ad in the Times to say that Obama whom he agrees with is using Israel as a punching bag. No one mentioned hedge funder Daniel Loeb, who funds the Emergency Committee for Israel.

Ben-Ami rationalized the "communal" conversation because American Jews have a curious national status:

“Every Israeli Prime Minister says that Israel is the state of all the Jewish people, and it does represent us and we do have a stake in what goes on there… we’re asked to send our kids, and we have a right to speak out and say that the way that the country behaves is deeply reflective of the values of the Jewish people….”

He and Eisner were very good about talking about conditions on the West Bank. Ben Ami said that people of a different skin color than ours don’t have any rights and that we are about to see a new phase in the conflict, in which this becomes a worldwide issue, the battle for equal rights between the river and the sea. That was clear-sighted, and though Ben Ami wants to do everything to put off that struggle, he said the destruction of Palestinian rights was at the top of the agenda wherever Hillary Clinton goes and is hurting the U.S.' strategic national interest.

Kristol sniggered. He said that it’s a “myth” that the Palestinians are important even to Arab countries. The status quo is sustainable for another 45 or 60 years. There is no Palestinian majority between the river and the sea, because Kristol doesn’t count Gaza—1.5 million people wiped off the political map.  

Some of these statements sounded like defensive lies from a party boss. When Ben-Ami said the settlement regime is threatening the rule of law in Israel, Kristol said with a petulant tone that it was “cavalier” for comfortable Americans on the Upper West Side who face no risks at all to "berate" Israel and “second-guess” the ”tough calls” that Israel has had to make.

“I'm not sure I'm capable of judging all these extremely complicated legal and political issues within the state of Israel. I believe that as Americans what we can do… is above all stand with Israel against existential threats, terror threats.”

This is Kristol's most important role in life, being Israel's guardian in the U.S. He  spoke proudly about the ways the Republican Party had purged critics of Israel in the last 30 years.

I think the good news is [Ron Paul] didn’t do well…I mean, the big story in the Republican Party over the last 30 years and I’m personally very happy about this as a Republican is first the eclipsing of I’d say the [George H.W.] Bush [Brent] Scowcroft [James] Baker traditional—it’s unfair to say-- hostility to Israel-- but lack of closeness and warmth for Israel … I say this as someone who served in the first Bush White House and has high regard for the first president Bush, but it was an Arabist, oldfashioned Republican Party, which was certainly very concerned about relations with Arab states that were not friendly with Israel and skeptical about the case for Israel. They have really been eclipsed by the Reagan George W. Bush McCain kind of tradition of a more sympathetic attitude toward Israel, greater support for Israel.

The other thing that for 20 years now that has been a worry for many of us on the Republican conservative side, was the rise of -- the return of the Pat Buchanan/Ron Paul type of hostility to Israel. The good news is that doesn’t have much support in the Republican Party or the presidential field or Congress….”

How did this happen? What is the relationship of this political transformation to the Jewish rise inside American society? 

Kristol kept saying that Americans support Israel, but does he trust them to do so without some influence? I don't think so. In 2008, I reported on a Kristol speech at AIPAC urging Israel's friends to cultivate up-and-coming politicians: Kristol said that Hart Hasten, a Holocaust survivor and successful Indianapolis businessman, had been crucial to shaping Dan Quayle's view of Israel, having "spent a lot of time" with Quayle when he was still a congressman.

And at Bnai Jeshurun, Kristol admitted playing a role in expelling members of the Republican Party he doesn't agree with. There were some Republicans you had to "repudiate," people 

of whom I disapprove so much that I wont appear with them. That I've encouraged that they be expelled or not welcomed into the Republican Party. I'd be happy if Ron Paul left and ran as a third party candidate. I was very happy when Pat Buchanan was allowed-- really encouraged I would say by George Bush and others [unintelligible name, possibly Tony Martin] in 1998 or 1999 to go off and run as a third party candidate. And he simply left the Republican Party. I'm happier to have a Republican Party without Pat Buchanan than with Pat Buchanan. But everyone’s got to make up their own mind about where they draw that line.

I again despair of the Jewish community. They called this a "robust" debate, but the "communal conversation" is a conversation foreclosed by Jewish fear--that criticism of the need for the Jewish state will bring about a rise in anti-Semitism. So Bill Kristol is empowered because of fears, because he is more of a communalist even than Ben-Ami. And no one in our community will force Kristol to reflect on his push for the Iraq war, which many Jews have still not had to reflect on – a war that the Reform Jews supported (even as Chris Matthews bragged the other night that the Vatican was against it). This is about what the poet Robert Lowell called our transformation from doves into hawks under the influence of Jewish nationalism, and in the end the issue is whether Ben Ami will allow his Jewish communal fears to override his genuine respect for human rights. 

The only way to beat Kristol is to build a coalition outside the Jewish community, to turn to the realists whom Kristol purged. Ben-Ami won’t do that. No, he is busy trying to calve Jews off the Kristol iceberg. He said again that he is not against AIPAC. This is a fight for influence, a fight for the center of the power structure. He and Kristol smiled when Eisner said that they both went to Collegiate, the fancy prep school nearby.

Meantime, I wonder who will follow up the great generational American Jewish stories I heard in Bnai Jeshrun. Who will chart the purge of the Realists from the Republican Party? Who will tell what Bill Kristol did to crush J Street? Who will tell what AIPAC did to elevate Bill Clinton and defeat that oldfashioned Arabist George Bush? Alas the Democratic establishment is not interested in these stories because it is just as corrupted; the smartest guy on this subject, MJ Rosenberg, left the Democratic Party-aligned thinktank Media Matters following Bill Kristol’s frontal attack on him in a full page New York Times ad-- Bill Kristol who is a Republican Party boss but speaks for the mainstream Democratic Party too.

Jamie Fly is at the neoconservative Foreign Policy Initiative. Its board consists of four directors, Robert Kagan, Bill Kristol, Dan Senor and Eric Edelman. A lot of robust diversity there! Looks like a front organization.

Kroenig is at the Council on Foreign Relations and worked in the Obama Defense Department-- so much for change you can believe in. Probably a Lester Crown play, the Obama supporter who is militant on Iran. Steve Walt took Kroenig's argument for war apart last December as a "textbook example of war-mongering disguised as 'analysis'":

let's be crystal clear about what Kroenig is advocating here. He is openly calling for preventive war against Iran, even though the United States has no authorization from the U.N. Security Council, it is not clear that Iran is actively developing nuclear weapons, and Iran has not attacked us or any of our allies -- ever. He is therefore openly calling for his country to violate international law. He is calmly advocating a course of action that will inevitably kill a significant number of people, including civilians, some of whom probably despise the clerical regime (and with good reason). And Kroenig is willing to have their deaths on his conscience on the basis of a series of unsupported assertions, almost all of them subject to serious doubt.

Here are Kroenig and Fly in the Washington Post:

The Obama administration has articulated only one bright red line: building nuclear weapons. But if we wait until Iran turns the final screws on a nuclear device, we probably will be too late. The administration’s pledge to use force if necessary also rings hollow if Iran is allowed to make significant progress in all the other areas required for a weapon.

The United States can strike Iran’s nuclear facilities to prevent Iran from making weapons-grade uranium, but once it has the fissile material, the game is over....

Washington has a spectrum of viable military options, including a limited strike against a few key nuclear facilities, as well as a broader bombing campaign that could destroy the Iranian military and destabilize the regime. The response could be commensurate to the seriousness of Iran’s transgressions.

This proactive approach should help calm nerves in the region about Obama’s mettle, and could forestall Israel from taking matters into its own hands.

How long before South Africans are accused of being anti-Semites?

South Africa to ban labeling West Bank settlement products as 'made in Israel', Amira Hass
Minister of Trade and Industry says South Africa recognizes the State of Israel only within the borders demarcated by the UN in 1948.
link to www.haaretz.com 

Last month a poll showed that 62 percent of American Jews plan to vote for Obama, down significantly from the 78 percent who said they voted for him in '08. This decline is one reason Obama's White House site has a whole Jewish pander page. Mitt Romney obviously feels that he can take more Jewish voters from Obama-- and more important, Jewish donors. 

The battle is now joined by Rabbi David Nesenoff, the impish rightwinger whose interview with Helen Thomas about Palestine on the White House lawn in 2010 led to her resignation. Nesenoff has a new video up called "Politics and Pastrami" that purports to expose anti-Obama attitudes among older Jews sitting in two New York delis. What the rabbi calls the "pre-viral advance copy of the video" is above. 

Nesenoff interviews 13 people who express anti-Obama attitudes. Some of their views are hateful-- anti-Arab, and suggesting that Obama is a secret Muslim. All but two of the interviewees are north of 50 by the looks of it; and I share the rabbi's belief that these people's attitudes are representative of their deli-going cohort, or somewhat anyway (as Max Blumenthal's seminal Feeling the Hate video captured the real attitudes of young American Jewish goers to Jerusalem drinking deep from the Zionist cisterns).

Though judge for yourself, but that guy with the brown curly hair and glasses seems to me a complete ringer, one of Nesenoff's hasbara pals. Here are some of the attitudes expressed:

I'm an Obama supporter... I'm very concerned.

Last time I voted for Obama and I am not going to vote for him again.

[Ringer guy says this] Jews are always liberal, we believe in the rights of everybody, but at some point you have to like, take a stand on what's right for your people.

I may not vote for him again.

Our friend in the White House is not strong enough on the right side for Israel.

He's certainly not strong behind Israel.

[Ringer] The speech in Cairo was a disgrace to the presidency... His whole attitude toward the Muslim world has been overly kind.

Obama's not going to do the right thing and make a strong move [on Iran]

I don't think he's truly behind Israel at all...

He comes from Chicago, from a very confusing background... It's still not known.

Bowing his head to the king of Saudi Arabia...Also hugging the Turkish prime minister, who is anti-Israel!

Let him go visit Jerusalem.

If you win land under attack, then it's your land.

He falsely believes that Israel can return to the 1967 borders.

Being that he is so much pro Muslim, I am very much anti-him now.

Deep down he's got a larger agenda.

People who are really pro-Israel cannot vote for Obama

David Nesenoff informs me by email that the two delis are in Long Island: Ben's Deli in Woodbury, NY, and Zan's Deli, in Lake Grove, NY.

He also says that my belief that the interviewees are cherrypicked is wrong:

Perhaps you think Helen Thomas was also in on it...

Your supposition concerning the "setup" is incorrect and it is insulting as well.  The piece was a documentary of real people and it was not a scripted narrative...

I guess you watched the video and just can't believe or even conceive of the concept that there are Jews who voted for Obama and now have some remorse. You can't believe it to the point that you need to question my integrity. 

Following a decision earlier this month by South Africa to identify Israeli goods made over the Green Line as settlement products, yesterday Denmark announced that produce from Israeli settlements will no longer carry a "made in Israel" sticker. Although the decision, similar to the United Kingdom's system, is non-binding, it sparked criticism from the country's extremist anti-immigration political party, Dansk Folkeparti, or the Danish People’s Party (DPP).

Members of the xenophobic populist group denounced the optional labels, stating settlements could eventually become part of a future, greater state of Israel, thus muting their current illegal status. "Villy Søvndal has no idea where the borders will be drawn for a new Palestinian state," said the DPP’s Søren Espersen in reference to a Danish politician who supports the label initiative. Continuing, "Until the negotiations have been finalized, there is nothing illegal about the trade [of settlement products]." In addition to rejecting Israel's 1967 borders, the DPP also fiercely opposes the establishment of a Palestinian state--or any additional Arab state in the region.

But Erik Andersen of Denmark's food agency says "the rules are very clear. You cannot write that produce comes from Israel if it comes from an Israeli settlement from the occupied regions of the West Bank. That would be misleading and wrong markings."

Over the past decade the DPP's number of political seats has doubled in, making the group the largest extremist party in Denmark. Their popular support is built off of a platform of anti-immigrant, Islamophobic, nationalism, and what the Guardian's Anne Karpf calls philozionism, a growing European trend of simultaneous anti-Semitism and pro-Zionism. Last March, in the Guardian Karpt wrote about a philozionist rally organized by the English Defense league and held in Denmark, attended by the "who's who," hopefuls of a "papers, please" society.

"Islam threatens not only Israel, Islam threatens the whole world. If Jerusalem falls today, Athens and Rome, Amsterdam and Paris will fall tomorrow," said Holland's Geert Wilders, who is known for his comparison of the Qu'ran to Mein Kampf.

Karpt goes on to detail remarks by the nationalist public official attendees:

Meanwhile, Filip Dewinter, the leader of Belgium's Vlaams Belang party, which grew out of the Vlaams Blok nationalist party, many of whose members collaborated with the Nazis during World War II, has proposed a quota on the number of Belgian-born Muslims allowed in public swimming pools. Dewinter calls Judaism 'a pillar of European society,' yet associates with antiSemites while claiming that 'multiculture ... like Aids weakens the resistance of the European body' and 'Islamophobia is a duty.'

But the most rabidly Islamophobic European philozionist is Heinz-Christian Strache, head of the Austrian Freedom party, who has compared foreigners with harmful insects and consorts with neo-Nazis. And yet, where do we find Strache in December 2010? In Jerusalem, alongside Dewinter, supporting Israel’s right to defend itself.

Similar to the other parties at the conference, the DPP hopes to restrict all Muslim immigration to Denmark. "We must work towards bringing down the immigration from Muslim countries to zero. There can naturally be some exceptions, but there's a need for political ambition to bring Muslim immigration close to zero," announced the party at the beginning of this year.

AJC hasbara video includes ethnically cleansed Palestinian village, Ben White
A hasbara video called “The Rhythm of Israel”, produced by the American Jewish Committee’s initiative ‘Project Interchange’, includes a church from an ethnically cleansed Palestinian village.
link to electronicintifada.net

Nakba day at Ofer prison, May, 15, 2012
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