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American Jewish Committee agent tries to dig up anti-Semitic dirt in a German refugee housing block

My Berlin contact Dror Dayan alerted me yesterday to a worrying case: An agent of the American Jewish Committe (AJC), a Jewish Israeli named Yonatan Shay, has visited a refugee housing block in Berlin, attempting to find evidence that would implicate mostly Syrian refugees in being inherently anti-Semitic, making the case that “Jews are being put in danger, when there are so many refugees here”, with an obvious agenda of riding the nationalist xenophobic wave.

The article appeared on the respected Die Welt’s internet site on the 25th January with an embedded video. Dror Dayan has made subtitles in English for the clip (select subtitles):

When the article went up, the AJC Berlin immediately tweeted: “Unser Yonathan Shay (AJC) war mit Kippa unterwegs in einem Flüchtlingsheim” – “Our Jonathan Shay (AJC) wearing a kippa walking around in a refugee housing block”, linking to the article.

The ACJ states on its website: “For more than a century, AJC has been the leading global Jewish advocacy organization. With offices across the United States and around the globe, and partnerships with Jewish communities worldwide, AJC works to enhance the well-being of the Jewish people and to advance human rights and democratic values for all.”

Interestingly, the Jerusalem Post took up the story on the same day. In reference to the Die Welt article and on the Post’s own initiative as well, we get some colorful twists. The Post’s title is “Israel native encounters swastikas, anti-Semitic slurs while visiting Berlin refugee camp”. It continues with a second headline: ‘”I’m not afraid, but I’m on guard,” German paper quotes Israeli Yonatan Shai as saying before visiting former Nazi airport-cum-refugee center.’

Why the Nazi issue now? Germany did have a Nazi regime at a point, but it was still Germany. The airport is not a Nazi airport – it’s an old German airport. The Nazi-twist of the Jerusalem Post is apparently meant to add to the austere anti-Semitic ‘atmosphere’ of the whole story.

The Post mentions that “the visiting Israeli came across anti-Semitic graffiti scrawled across the walls” where one could get the impression that it’s all over the place. And true, we see a swastika and a star of David with ‘666’ marked near it, at the beginning of the video. But that’s all we see that could really support the ‘anti-Semitic’ allegation. The other graffiti which shows a map of historical Palestine with the colours of the Palestinian flag, requires more effort from Shay in order to make the ‘anti-Semitic’ accusation credible. It may be ‘anti-Israeli’ – but is it thus  anti-Semitic? (Interestingly, such maps showing the whole of Israel without differentiating Israel and Palestinian occupied territories, are to be seen in Israeli textbooks. It doesn’t need the Israeli flag painted over it – it’s tacitly understood by default. Does this directly mean ‘hate of Palestinians?’)

Now in order to bolster his point, Shay resorts to the tactic of trying to put words in the mouth of a boy whom he encounters. “All Palestine? No Israel?”

The boy kind of agrees, though it’s not clear whether he fully understands.

Shay continues: “So Jews all back to Europe? But not here, here no Jews”.

This is the part which the Post apparently refers to with the following: “Yet in a more hostile encounter, Die Welt reported that one young refugee boy had menacingly gestured and told Shai “the Jews must get out of the country.””

This is enough for Shay:

“This is proof that antisemitism is present here. Especially the young refugees are indoctrinated, and they can´t break away from those opinions, from this hate, from those views. Which they grew up with, and unfortunately they import it to Germany. It´s terrible. Germany, after the holocaust, after what happened because of the German nation, yes they have the historical responsibility to take all the refugees of the world, OK good, but there are also other factors to consider: Jews live here, and those Jews are being put in danger, when there are so many refugees here, who grew up with the opinion that all the evil and bad of the world comes from Jews and Israel.”

The Jerusalem Post further notes that there were “grown men ominously whispering “Jew.”” So, is that an indication of anti-Semitism?

Given, Shay saw some anti-Semitic graffiti on one wall filling about a square foot in total. The thing is, that Shay’s “operation” is so thin, that it has very little substance. Shay seems to have a wish to stir up some commotion with his kippa, but as the video in article notes, “Yonatan was not attacked verbally or physically on this day.” The Post says “According to the Tel Aviv native, who moved to Berlin a year ago, he planned the visit as a means for open dialogue”, whilst on the video Shay clearly says that this is an “experiment” to see how they would “react”. As an apparent compensation for the lack of action in the video, we get added text in reference to Yonatan’s allegation where he “reports that he was attacked several times by Arabs in Berlin because of his Kippa.”

The greater concern than the mere thinness of the case, is not only how it is inflated from nearly nothing to something by mainstream media – but also its suggestion and apparent agenda:

To make a case against refugee influx from war-torn countries, on the supposition that this will end up endangering Jews. This is a dangerous generalisation, which if taken seriously may have effect upon people who are in real need.

That an American Jewish advocacy organisation, through its foreign Berlin branch, supports making such a case seems to me distasteful to the extreme, where its purported goal of advancing advancing “human rights and democratic values for all” seems to be superseded by its other goal – to “enhance the well-being of the Jewish people”. It would seem that for AJC, the latter must come at the expense of the former.

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This is really complete nonsense. American Jewish organizations across the political spectrum have been supportive of Western countries taking in refugees and migrants from Syria, and they’ve all supported upping the number that the United States takes. http://www.jta.org/2015/11/24/news-opinion/politics/for-jewish-groups-syrian-refugees-are-a-reminder-not-a-threat

That includes AJC. http://www.ajc.org/site/apps/nlnet/content3.aspx?c=7oJILSPwFfJSG&b=8586851&ct=14763815&notoc=1

The only concern they’ve raised is that the process be orderly in order to ensure that Europe knows who is coming in and that the countries do a better job of integrating the migrants, given Europe’s poor track record in this regard over the years. The Jewish community in the United States and internationally has strongly supported Chancellor Merkel, President Obama, and others who have called for taking in the refugees.

Wow, don’t you just love the haunted look on his face in that second picture? I wonder how long it took him to get just the right expression.

This is vile. These people have been driven from their homes by the U.S. and its allies (including Israel) proxy wars in Syria and does this guy feel any sympathy? Does he use this opportunity to find out what happened to them? Does he try to relate to them as a fellow human being? No, his whole mission is to find out how much they “hate” him so he can validate his own dismissal of their pain. Horrible and pathological on so many levels.

It doesn’t need the Israeli flag painted over it – it’s tacitly understood by default. Does this directly mean ‘hate of Palestinians?’)

Of course not. “Palestinians” do not exist in their minds, so there is nothing to hate. It also proves why Palestinians cannot have rights and must accept any illegal abuses. After all, how can something nonexistant have rights.

RE: “An agent of the American Jewish Committe (AJC), a Jewish Israeli named Yonatan Shay, has visited a refugee housing block in Berlin, attempting to find evidence that would implicate mostly Syrian refugees in being inherently anti-Semitic, making the case that ‘Jews are being put in danger, when there are so many refugees here’, with an obvious agenda of riding the nationalist xenophobic wave. The article appeared on the respected Die Welt’s internet site on the 25th January with an embedded video.” ~ Jonathan Ofir

MY COMMENT: Why do I have such an intense feeling of déjà vu? Oh yeah, now I remember:

“Israeli Reporter’s Fraudulent Paris Walk on Muslim ‘Wild Side'” | By Richard Silverstein | Tikun Olam | February 18, 2015

[EXCERPTS] Though Israeli “journalist” Zvika Klein’s Paris “walk on the wild side” through allegedly Muslim Paris neighborhoods [for use in writing an article for the Adelson-owned, Makor Rishon/NRG – J.L.D.] aroused indignation in Israeli and western media, the story aroused skepticism in French media. The French publication Les Inrocks published an investigative piece and interview with Klein which undermined many of the claims and assumptions on which his video was based. . .

. . . As I noted in an earlier post, Klein claims he walked through Paris for “ten hours,” yet the entire video is 1:36. Almost half of the video shows him walking with no interaction with anyone (let alone being insulted). So there is less than one minute of negative interaction with Parisian Muslims.

At one point, Klein claims a woman spat at him. Yet you cannot see what he claims on the video itself. He admits in his NRG article that he also was accompanied by a “security guard” because of “tense conditions” in the city. One wonders if Klein half expected or hoped that he would be attacked by an Islamist in order to get a really good story.

In an interview with Les Inrocks, Klein claims to have walked through the 23rd Arrondissement. There are only 20 in Paris. He also claims he walked through Barbes in the Parisian suburbs when it’s in the city center. He claimed he was constantly harassed in Saracelles, but one-third of this neighborhood is itself Jewish. Apparently, Jewish residents have figured out a way to live with their Muslim neighbors.

The Les Inrocks reporter who wrote the story interviewed Klein. The interview was conducted in English, since he doesn’t speak French. Klein told him “a friend” translated the purported French slurs. We know nothing about who did the translations, what his background was, his level of knowledge of French, etc. Several French speakers have told me after listening repeatedly to the audio, that they can’t hear the comments purported in the captions. This raises further concerns about the authenticity of this entire project. . .

. . . Klein’s foray into the heart of the Paris’ Muslim beast is an extension of the Robert Spencer fake “No-Go” claims about UK cities like Birmingham. The truth is that there are no No-Go neighborhoods in any European city where Jews may not walk without being in fear of their lives. If you create a provocation and act suspiciously as Klein did taking a cameraman and security guard with him into such a neighborhood, then of course you will arouse suspicion. . .

ENTIRE COMMENTARY – http://www.richardsilverstein.com/2015/02/18/french-media-documents-israeli-reporters-fraudulent-paris-walk-on-muslim-wild-side/

This clown better keep his day job. As a reporter, he’s a joke. The young guy he was talking at looked, at least to me, uncomfortable because he possibly had no idea what Shay was asking him/puting words into his mouth. Schmuck.