This is an astonishingly brilliant piece. I would beg you all to read it. It’s published at New English Review and linked, but I’m re-posting it all here because it is so good.

Happy Israeli organic chickens

In January 1981 the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) Summit meeting in Mecca declared that, “Palestine should be viewed as the paramount issue of Muslim nations.” Since then Europe hastened to adopt this path as well and has provided for the Palestinization of the cultural, social and above all political life of Europe.

For three decades, Europe obeyed the OIC in a servile manner. The EU has effectively created a major problem for itself that is eating away and destroying it. The EU made Palestine the hub of its international policy, transforming it into a symbol of peace and universal harmony, in a world that would not know “justice” until its coming. The only obstacle to this paradise is the Machiavellian Israel, the oppressor and usurper of Palestine, whose purity as a peaceful victim is the harbinger of global justice.

Europe does not yet dare use armed force against Israel, whose existence it claims to defend, while advising it to commit suicide. Europe fights Israel with the infamous Nazi weapons by delegitimizing its existence, robbing it of its history, defaming it by propaganda, hatred and attempts to destroy its economy through boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS). Toward this goal it encourages an international campaign of incitement to hatred by financing anti-Israel NGOs and lobbies. Europe claims that Jewish existence in its ancestral homeland, Judea and Samaria, is an “occupation” - a colonization. In this way, Israel has become a state that is occupying its own historical homeland. In Orwellian language propagandists speak of “the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land” that is called Judea, and not of the ethnic and religious cleansing of Jews from their homeland through wars, expulsions, dispossession and the dehumanizing apartheid rule of dhimmitude. Euro-jihadists invoke “Palestinian resistance” rather than the reality of their terrorism that has spread throughout the planet. The EU has used every stratagem to force Israel to self-destruct in the name of Palestine. That destruction would lead to an era of “justice and peace” in the world in the same way the charnel houses of Auschwitz were meant to purify humanity from Jews.

What does Palestinization mean? Firstly, it means creating a people as a substitute for Israel, which takes over its history and therefore its legitimacy. From Palestinization (like the Nazification of Europe two decades before) comes the delegitimization of Israel, an intruder state in the region and in history, even in humanity. The Palestinization of history denies Israel’s identity, culture, historic and human rights within its homeland, including Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem. For the OIC this process is part and parcel of Islamic theology, which regards the Bible as simply a falsified version of the Koran. According to Islam, biblical history is Islamic history, and the biblical characters we see represented in churches are all Muslim prophets who have virtually no connection with the facts reported in the Bible.

This context explains the Islamization of the Jewish and Christian religious heritage, an approach that involves denying the identity of these two religions, since Christianity views itself as emerging from Judaism, whose Scriptures it adopted. If the Bible is an Islamic account, Christianity too, and not just Judaism, are both falsifications of Islam. The negation of biblical history, with which Europe has assiduously linked itself by claiming that Israel is a colonizing intruder in its own homeland thereby challenges the historic rights of the Jews to their own homeland. This also negates Christian history and confirms the Koranic interpretation refuting the historicity of both the Torah and the Gospels.

Hence, if there was never a history of Israel or of the Gospels, but only the history of Ibrahim, Ishmael, Issa (the Koranic Jesus), if all the biblical kings and prophets were Muslim, in what is the West rooted? Would it not be in the Koran? That is the logical conclusion of Europe’s choice, when, furious at the return of the Jews to Jerusalem in 1967, it deliberately decided to deny them their ancient capital. It attributed their heritage to those who, by a war of invasion, had illegitimately occupied it since 1948, expelling and dispossessing all its Jewish inhabitants. In a nutshell, if the Israelis are foreign colonialists, occupiers of their own country, it means they have no past, no history, and if Judaism is just a tissue of lies, the same applies to Christianity. If Israel never existed in the past, then its modern restoration is just a colonial deception to conquer territory to which it has no historical, religious or cultural claims, and so its destruction is justified. If history testifies to the contrary, then Europe becomes willingly responsible for the abominable crime of genocide – wiping out the past existence of a people in order to remove its current legitimacy and its human, religious, cultural and historical rights. This reflects the participation, organization and financing by European nations and the European Commission of an international campaign of incitement to hatred for the dismembering of Israel.

The Palestinization of Europe is not just its theological Islamization through Palestinianism, this being the ideology for Israel’s demise by disclaiming a people’s territorial sovereignty, history and culture, in conformity with the jihadist worldview. Palestinianism is also a paranoid obsession to hound Israel while claiming it is for its own good. By proclaiming that the Palestinian cause is the cause of peace and justice, Europe invests enormous energy, billions of euros and every effort to send Israel back behind the 1948 lines which it knows are indefensible. Hundreds of thousands of books, accusations and speeches subvert the facts and impose this policy.
The Palestinian grounding in Nazism: The de-Judaizing of Christianity

Within this context, the Kairos Palestine declaration of 2010 brands Israel with terms like occupier of Arab lands, colonizer, promoter of apartheid; while conversely Palestinians are innocent victims resisting the occupation and aspiring only to security, justice and peace. The Kairos declaration, hardly surprisingly, condemns all Christian theology that is based upon the Bible or on biblical faith or history that would legitimize Israel. Understand if you can; what would remain of Christian theology, faith or history if you get rid of Israel and the Bible? Could Christian Palestinianism be the camouflage of Nazism, which had planned to de-Judaize Christianity? The document ends with a call to people, businesses and countries to take part in the BDS campaign against Israel. This request is in line with the demands of the OIC and similar to the understanding of the European former leaders, who are the same ones responsible for the current Eurabian situation.

What are the consequences of the choice of al-Quds – that is a Muslim Jerusalem – by Europe for its identity, the criteria for assessing its own history, and its immigration policy? The Europe that chose al-Quds and rejected Jerusalem is rejecting its own basic identity. It is denying the Bible, which is not merely a religious text that states various universal values, but also, for Christians, a chronicle of the coming of Jesus and Christianity, which is its culmination. If there had not been a Jewish people, nor biblical history or geography, there would not be Christianity either. Accordingly, Judaism and Christianity are just a huge aberration, and what remains are the Koran and the Muslim Jesus, whose eschatological mission is the destruction of Christianity.

The choice of al-Quds replaces the Bible with the Koran. Europe knows that the OIC has decided to move its head office from Jeddah to al-Quds. The OIC is deemed the most suitable institution to represent the world Caliphate, with its mission to anchor the universal Ummah in the Koran and Sunna. What church could remain in al-Quds? By seeking to destroy Israel, the Church is destroying its own very existence.

With such a disavowal of its own roots and identity, should we still be surprised that Europe has sold its citizens off cheaply on its own territory? In the same way that the European Union has not ceased to harass Israel and to challenge its roots and rights, it has dragged to court those courageous Europeans who have asserted their own identity, rights and freedoms. This political link between the OIC and the European Union did not only appear in the context of the Israeli-Arab conflict but also in internal European politics concerning the massive Muslim immigration into Europe, which started in the years 1974-75. It was then that a joint Parliamentary Association for Euro-Arab Cooperation (PAEAC) was set up with the task of passing on the political demands from the Arab League countries to the European Community and to monitor their implementation within Europe.

Transposing its anti-Israeli policy to Europe, the EU wants to create a tabula rasa of historical nationalisms and of the privileges of sovereign states, to transfer to the UN – dominated by the OIC – the world governance of human rights. The basic rights of Europeans to security, to their history and freedom of expression are disproved, rebutted, dismissed by the OIC under the guise of Islamophobia and its vehement request for European multiculturalism. Rooted in the civilization of jihad and dhimmitude, it imposes its own criteria through its European and UN go-betweens in its new Western empire. So while Europe prides itself on creating universal, humanitarian governance, on the international scene the OIC is implementing a Koranic order of Islamic human rights.

With the repudiation of Israel, the EU is repudiating itself. It is putting the emphasis on the Greco-Roman heritage and eliminating that of Judeo-Christianity to please the OIC and Muslim migrants. When the EU does this it eliminates its biblical and therefore Jewish basis, as if Christianity had arisen in the world out of nowhere. This repression of identity is just one more concession to Islam and its culture that is hostile to Jews and Christians, an issue that has been neither recognized nor repudiated. To throw Judaism (Israel) and Christianity (the West) into the dustbin of history is to remove human, historical, religious, cultural and national rights from Jews and Christians. It means adopting dhimmitude.

Eurabia and Palestinianism come from the same rejection and the same policy applied to the destruction of the nation-state, the manifestation of the spirit and culture of peoples, condemned to extinction in a globalized, humanitarian utopia. Their points in common are (1) the war against Israel; (2) the de-Judaization of Christianity; (3) the de-Christianization of Europe; and (4) the joint EU-OIC policy to strengthen the UN’s global governance that the OIC aims to monopolize. This suicidal approach is specific to Europe; it does not exist in China or in India, or even in Muslim countries.

With the anarchic uprisings of the “Arab Spring” (March 2011), the United States and most European countries led by France and its Foreign Minister, Alain Juppé, have become involved in Arab and African tribal conflicts, invoking the “right of interference” and the “right of protection”. These rights, however, are applied selectively, because they are never invoked to protect Christians against persecution in Egypt, Iraq, Turkey, Algeria, Sudan, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Indonesia or Pakistan. They are also not used to protect sailors arbitrarily taken hostage by the Somalis. Europe would find it grotesque and indecent to invoke these rights against the spread of anti-Israeli hatred calling for the extermination of the Jews, against the deluge of rockets launched from Gaza into Israel, or against the hideous crimes perpetrated by its Palestinian allies and “protégés” against Israeli civilians. Nor has it reacted to the Islamization of the biblical holy places in Hebron, both Jewish and Christian, by UNESCO, acting on orders of the OIC. Yet this approach is a serious breach of the religious and historical rights of Jews and Christians, and contradicts the western definition of human rights. The recognition of Palestine by UNESCO is a harbinger to the Islamization on a world level of the historical and spiritual roots of Judaism and Christianity and conforms to the Koranic assertion that Islam precedes and dominates these two religions.

This post will be long, sorry! It’s part travelogue, part political observations but here are the highlights;

• the old left right political discussions just don’t work when Islam is the primary concern;
• I don’t care what people were, if they’re making a trip to see the disputed parts of Israel and talking with the people who live there, they’re doing the right thing;
• why is Geert Wilders not part of the group I traveled with;
• some parts of Europe actually understand Israel’s fight better than many Israelis.

If you follow my tweets, you’ll have seen a flurry of activity on the 6th of December as I toured the area known as the Shomron with a delegation of politicians from Europe. What was unusual was that these people came and entered what their media calls the “Occupied West Bank” without fear of the personal political repercussions of doing this.

Just crossing an imaginary line that lies 20 minutes drive from my house carries with it a huge political implication for many of these people back home. They will now be attacked and demonised even for making the trip: and doing it in the presence of the “Settlers” is as if they sat down and had lunch with devils.

The delegation drove up from their hotel in Ashkelon (they had toured the Gaza border and Sderot the day before). I met them at the entrance to the city (and it is a real city) of Ari’el. I have never driven there before but it’s only 30 minutes from my home (in optimum traffic) and it’s about 10 mins from the artificial border. And I live only 10 mins from the sea and can see the sea from my home.

I joined the bus and immediately noted the armored glass. Nice. [Location]

We had a guide who’d joined us on the bus, only later did I find out his interesting background. He told us of how we were following the ancient path that Abraham followed when he first entered the land of Israel. All the places along this road are mentioned in the bible. The ties of Judaism to the land just get stronger and stronger with every bend in the road.

Our first stop was the community of Elon Moreh where we were joined by Sarah. She pointed out the community center in the little town, tragically named after a family of four, all of whom were shot to death in their home by a muslim terrorist in 2002. What a contrast: the Palestinian Authority name town squares after the terrorists who murder, the Israelis name them after the victims.

The group included some people I’d met before like Filip Dewinter and Kent Ekeroth from Sweden and some I hadn’t. Arutz 7 (who accompanied the group) wrote the following:

The group included Heinz-Christian Strache, head of the German Freedom Party, who is seen as a likely candidate to become the next chancellor of Austria; Filip Dewinter of Belgium’s Vlaams Belang party; MP Frank Creyelman, who heads the Belgian Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee; René Stadtkewitz, Chairman of Germany’s Freedom Party; and Claus Pandi, editor-in-chief of Krone Zeitung, the biggest newspaper in Austria. The visit coincides with that of Dutch Freedom Party leader Geert Wilders in Israel.

Off the bus [location] we stopped and listened to the story of archeological find of Joshua’s Alter as told by our guide, Sarah. This was simultaneously translated into German by Elisabeth Sabaditch-Wolf. There’s a good version of the story she told online but one of the key points is that when excavated the only animal bones found were from kosher animals and specifically the sort described in Leviticus as being suitable for sacrifice. That would be an odd co-incidence if this land had not been inhabited by Jews.

It’s hard to explain to people who don’t make this journey that when they read about “Settlements” and “Occupied West Bank”, there is such a stunning amount of history that binds Jews to this land and this land to the Jews.

On any one trip you’ll only hear about an infinitesimal part of this!

Contrast that with the modern Palestinians who have even taken their false name from the Romans and graced it with a starting letter “P” that doesn’t exist in Arabic! Most can’t even say Palestinian: it comes out as Faleshtina!

Another important point that was made to us and was obvious standing on those hills. This is the very thin line that separates Israel’s population from death at the hands of it’s enemies. From these hills one can see all the way down to Tel Aviv and the sea. Artillery on these hills regularly shelled Tel Aviv and other parts of Israel when the land was occupied by Jordan. This land is a very precarious buffer. It’s been said before, you’ve read it before, but I want to convey to you the reality that strikes one when standing there. This is the reality that these politicians from Europe will have felt, they all “got it”.

In addition something else is clear when driving through these lands. All the Arab villages are built on the valley floors. All the Israeli towns are on the tops of the hills. This makes for some bleak and rather tricky building conditions, but obviously this is a military imperative. But it also puts to bed the lie that land or property is taken from Arabs and given to Jewish settlements. Its also abundantly clear that the land is very sparsely occupied with or without Jews.

The previous day I’d met up with the group in Ashkelon in the morning. That afternoon they toured the Gaza border and visited Sderot while I took a train back to Tel Aviv to hear Geert Wilders speak along with Aryeh Eldad. I’d sat with Filip Dewinter and his colleagues from Vlaams Belang and enjoyed a particularly fine piece of fish (good enough for Jehova I dare say!). We talked about the benefits to Israel of immigration and how amazing Israel has been at absorbing its Jewish immigrants. From the survivors of the death camps, through the refugees who fled Arab countries after 1948 and to the massive 1 million Russian Jews who joined the country in roughly 10 years. 20% population absorption in 10 years is unprecedented and barely mentioned. It’s nonsense to talk about anti-immigration. It’s the unspoken truth that some immigrants into some countries are better than others. The right sort of immigrants can always be taken.

But it does make Geert Wilder’s self imposed separation from this new wave of European counter Jihadi politicians quite odd and incongruous. I can’t blame him, the power of the press to demonise by association. Somewhere along the line, however, it’s going to be time to call them out: Filip Dewinter does not secretly harbour plans to expel all of Belgium’s Jews. It’s just plain obvious to anyone who takes the time to have a piece of fish and a good beer with him.

We moved on for a lunch held in the Yeshiva (torah study school) in Har Bracha [location] and a meeting with Rabbi Eliezer Melamed. It was here that the media conducted quite a few interviews some of which made it into a piece by Arutz Sheva: European ‘New Right’ MPs in Samaria: ‘This is Jewish Land!’.

On our drive back to Ari’el we passed the entrance to Nablus which is the ancient biblical town of Schem, site of Joseph’s tomb. Well there is a big red sign at the entrance. The sign prohibits Jews from entering the city because it is under the control of the Palestinian Authority. The explanation of this sign was, as ever, translated into German leaving Elisabeth hunting for the right word in German: could it really be “Judenrhein” written on a sign in Israel?

We returned to Ari’el where we visited the 12,000 student University. This is not a small University and it’s not temporary. Get used to it being there. It also has at least 500 Arab students and, unlike Bersheva University for example, these are not mostly Beduin. These are Arabs from Judea and Samaria: they’re not enforcing a boycott on the “settlement” of Ari’el.

While there we looked out on a massive blot on the face of Israel. It is the temporary homes that house some of the Jews evicted from their homes in Gaza. These people are still living in temporary structures: they’d been all set to begin building new homes when Obama’s crazy building freeze came into force. One can only hope that their horrendous treatment by the Israeli government will get better soon with proper compensation for the beautiful homes they were dragged from by the Jewish army. For a pointless dream of a peace that never came from a fanatically religious foe that knows not how to say thank you.

The last part of the day was a much delayed meeting with the Mayor of Ari’el. More than anyone else he is responsible for founding this amazing city which is the hub of the Shomron. He is an avowed right winger and a firm fixture in Likud. He is also fighting cancer and he pulled himself out to come and visit this group. I live tweeted the meeting and you can find a great summary on Tundra Tabloids.

The next day the party visited Yad Vashem (the Holocaust Museum) and the Knesset and I was unable to join them: sometimes your kids come ahead of saving the world! Paul Weston also wrote about this trip: Land for Peace — Or Land for a Terror State? and gave a short speech in Jerusalem: The West Needs to Wake Up.

All in all some 300,000 Israelis now live in Judea and Samaria. They don’t live in tents. It is time to come to terms with the need for Israel to be able to defend itself and the ties of the Jewish people to this land. I must admit I didn’t fully understand all this and, as usual, there is no substitute for getting boots on the ground and eyes on the. And if the experienced changed me, perhaps it helps to bring people here: no matter what your preconceptions about them.

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And, when I see something like the sight I saw in Barcelona today, it is looking just a little bit like yet another throw away fashion item. Remember $200 pashminas anyone? $5 on any street corner today.

So perhaps the cult of Palestinianism (as Bat Ye’or calls it) might go the same way one day. We can but hope.

Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D’Alema termed the assassination of Imad Mughniyah “terror” in an interview to be published Friday in the popular Italian weekly L’espresso. He also said that Israeli assassinations of Hamas officials “serve as an alibi for terror.”

Concerning Mughniyah’s killing, “by my definition, the car bomb in the middle of Damascus was terror,” he said.

A definition that apparently has great nuance.

Following Hamas’ January 2006 victory in the Palestinian elections, d’Alema said that ‘while the organization is in fact extremist, the terror attacks it wages on Israel are part of the Palestinian resistance to the Israeli occupation.’

Meanwhile, if you read the whole Ynet article linked above, you will come across this anecdote that sums up D’Alema’s views:

A woman who accompanied the new Italian foreign minister during his visit to Jerusalem in 1999 said that upon his arrival she greeted him by saying “welcome to Israel,” to which he responded, “welcome to Palestine.”

Welcome to the reality of the new Italy-Israel relations.

Member of the European Parliament for Belgium V√©ronique De Keyser stated in an address that she would like to ‚Äústrangle‚Äù Israel’s ambassador if he discussed Israel‚Äôs security with her.

Addressing an organization called the European Left Group last Wednesday, De Keyser opined that the European Parliament was showing ‚Äúpassivity‚Äù on the issue of “Palestinian prisoners” (a reference to convicted Arab terrorists from Judea, Samaria and Gaza being held in Israeli jails), and complimented the Palestinian Authority Arabs for their ‚Äúmoderation and maturity.”

[sound of me spitting out my coffee all over the monitor]

“I wonder how they are able to limit violence in the territories given the background,” she said. “If the Israeli ambassador comes in the future to speak of Israel’s security, I feel like I want to strangle him.”

Yep. Spoken like a true pacifist.

The event, held at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, was part of a campaign for the release of Marwan Barghouti, a Fatah terror leader serving a life sentence in Israel for his role in several murderous attacks.

French MEP Francis Wurtz, who heads the European United Left, announced that the appeal for the EU to recognize the “Palestinian national unity government” had already been signed by some sixty members of the European parliament.

MEP De Keyser called on the German EU presidency ‚Äúto differentiate between its positions on the Holocaust against the Jews and the current policy of the State of Israel.‚Äù Apparently trying to compare Israel with Nazi Germany while showing her supposed evenhandedness with regard to neck-wringing, she also said “one must wring the neck of the European and German culpability [sic] on the Shoah.”

Sounds like she has a huge preoccupation with necks. I’m guessing that if she focused more on teeth, she probably wouldn’t look like Alfred E. Newman’s long lost sister.

The decisive battle against Islamic extremists will not be fought in Iraq, but in Europe. It is not in Baghdad but in cities like Antwerp, Belgium, where the future of the West will be decided.

I recently met Marij Uijt den Bogaard, a 49-year-old woman who deserves America’s support at least as much as Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Ms. Uijt den Bogaard was an Antwerp civil servant in the 1990s, who spent many years working in the immigrant neighborhoods of Antwerp. There she noticed how radical Islamists began to take over. “They work according to a well-defined plan,” she says.

One of the things Ms. Uijt den Bogaard used to do for the immigrants was to assist them with their administrative paperwork. Quite a few of them came to trust her.

About three years ago, young men dressed in black moved into the neighborhoods. They had been trained in Saudi Arabia and Jordan and adhere to Salafism, a radical version of Islam. They set up youth organizations, which gradually took over the local mosques. “The Salafists know how to debate and they know the Qur’an by heart, while the elderly running the mosques do not,” she said They also have money. “One of them told me that he gets Saudi funds.” Because they are eloquent, the radicals soon became the official spokesmen of the Muslim community, also in dealing with the city authorities. Ms. Uijt den Bogaard witnessed how the latter gave in to Salafist demands, such as the demand for separate swimming hours for Muslim women in the municipal pools.

Worried immigrants told Ms. Uijt den Bogaard what was happening. On the basis of their accounts and her own experiences she wrote (confidential) reports for the city authorities about the growing radicalization. This brought her into conflict, both with the Islamists and her bosses in the city.

The city warned her that her reports were unacceptable, that they read like “Vlaams Belang tracts” (the Vlaams Belang is Antwerp’s anti-immigrant party) and that she had to “change her attitude.” The Islamists sensed that she disapproved of them. They might also have been informed, because there are Muslims working in the city administration. One day, when she was accompanied by her superior, she was attacked by a Muslim youth. Her superior refused to interfere. When she questioned him afterward he said that all the animosity toward her was her own fault.

In the end she was fired. She is unemployed at the moment and gets turned away whenever she applies for another job as a civil servant. Last week, she learned that city authorities have given the job of integration officer, whose task it is to supervise 25 Antwerp mosques, to one of the radical Salafists. Meanwhile, the latter have threatened her with reprisals if she continues to speak out.

After her dismissal Ms. Uijt den Bogaard went to see Monica Deconinck, a Socialist politician who is the head of the Antwerp social department, to tell her about the plight of the Muslim women. Ms. Deconinck said, “You have taken your job too seriously and tried to do it too well,” adding that she cannot help, although she sympathizes. Ms. Uijt den Bogaard also went to see Christian Democrat and Liberal politicians. They also refused to help her because they are governing the city in a coalition with the Socialists. The only opposition party in town is the Vlaams Belang.

According to Ms. Uijt den Bogaard, the reason why the Socialists, who run the city, allow the Islamists to do as they please is because they want to get the Muslim vote, which is controlled increasingly by the Salafists who are in the process of taking over the mosques.

In a letter to city authorities she wrote: “You employ workers to improve social cohesion in the city’s neighborhoods. But if you do not want to know what is damaging social cohesion, then you need not bother sending those workers!… Employees who are confronted with this problem [of Muslim radicalization] and investigate are silently removed, losing their income and their reputation. That is censorship in the fashion of political dictatorships. As a former member of your services I am shocked to find myself in this position and to discover after years of service that you have no policy whatever, either political or with regard to your personnel.”

Sadly, what is happening in Antwerp is not unique. The Salafists employ the same strategy in other European cities. They boasted to Ms. Uijt den Bogaard about their international network and their successes in neighboring countries. While the Americans fight to secure Iraq, Western Europe is becoming a hotbed of Salafism.

Of course, the cause of this is the twerpicization of Islam.

A town in Belgium has banned an artwork of Saddam Hussein for fear that it will put off tourists and offend Muslims.
The piece, called Saddam Hussein Shark, shows the handcuffed ex-Iraqi ruler suspended in liquid and wearing nothing more than underpants.

The mayor of Middlekerke, Michel Landuyt, said the work could “shock people”, including Muslims.

 

He said he decided to ban Czech artist David Cerny’s sculpture before the row over cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.

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But Mr Landuyt felt its exhibition would be too much for the small Belgian seaside town. “In my view, it was too shocking,” he said.

 

“They wanted to put this piece in a location where many children come, so that couldn’t be allowed,” he told the BBC.

He added that the ‘Saddam Shark’ is now going to be displayed in a museum in the Belgian city of Ostend.

A commercial with a blatant anti-Semitic motif that is being broadcast on Czech public television has come under fire from Israelis and Jews in the republic. Following protests, the advertisers announced they would stop broadcasting the ad as of tomorrow. The ad was produced by Mountfield, a company marketing home and garden products. Broadcast on both Czech public TV channels, the ad shows a customer wishing to buy a saw for less than its listed price. When the vendor refuses, the customer dresses up as an ultra-Orthodox Jew and manages to bargain with the vendor until he gives him an 80 percent discount. At the end of the scene, the “ultra-Orthodox” customer leaves mumbling to himself “80 percent off … that’s not such a big deal.”

 

The Israeli ambassador in the Czech Republic, Arthur Avnon, and the curator of the Jewish Museum in Prague, Leo Pavlat, demanded that Mountfield pull the ad. A company spokesman said over the weekend “at the request of Israel’s ambassador, the ad will not be broadcast as of Monday this week.”

 

The spokesman refused to apologize, saying the ad was intended to describe the “positive aspects” of a skillful Jewish merchant – a figure frequently described in literature, the company said – “to show customers how to best take advantage of company reductions.”