Top 10 Anti-Semitic Slurs of 2011
As 2011 draws to a close, children writing to Santa Claus aren’t the only ones making lists. Editors everywhere are furiously compiling the annual news round-ups that give us a chance to look back and smile — or cringe — at the year’s bests and worsts, in every category from books to fashion and beyond.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center has been hard at work, too, compiling something much more chilling — a list of the top ten anti-Israel and anti-Jewish slurs from 2011. It won’t fill you with holiday cheer, but it’s worth reading. A statement from the center, followed by the full list, appears below.
For the last two years, The Simon Wiesenthal Center, a leading Jewish human rights NGO, has compiled a list of the top ten anti-Israel and anti-Jewish slurs. The list continues to reflect the growing global anti-Semitism and de-legitimization of Israel coming from mainstream voices. It does not include statements by terrorist organizations, the lunatic fringe, or the government of Iran. These citings should serve as a wake-up call to those who believe that such rants are the exclusive domain of Neo-Nazis and crackpots.
1.) “I come before you today from the Holy Land, the land of Palestine, the land of divine messages, ascension of the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him and the birthplace of Jesus Christ peace be upon him, to speak on behalf of the Palestinian people…”
-Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas at his UN General Assembly address, September 23, 2011. Speaking to the world, Abbas omitted any reference to the Jewish people’s connection to the Holy Land. No reference to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, nor King David, King Solomon, or Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel.
2.) “I would like to see accurate statistics of how many Israelis have been killed by the bombs thrown by Palestinians or with the rockets that were launched by them?…. we know that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were killed… neither Turkey nor the Muslims in the region have exerted such cruelty on Israel… Israel is inexplicably cruel, against innocent Palestinians, hiding behind the Nazi Holocaust and seeking victimhood….Everybody knows what Israel is about”
-Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan during CNN Interview with Fareed Zakaria, September 25, 2011
3.) “Everything that happens today in the world has to do with the Zionists… American Jews are behind the world economic crisis that has hit Greece also.”
– Zorba The Greek composer, Mikis Theodorakis, winner of the International Music Council-UNESCO International Music Prize, also told Greek TV that he was “anti-Israel and anti-Semitic,” February 15, 2011
4.) “I love Hitler…People like you would be dead. Your mothers, your forefathers, would all be f***|* gassed,”**
– The renowned Christian Dior fashion designer John Galliano was fired and later convicted in a French court for his anti-Semitic rants screamed at Jews in a Paris bar. Galliano later apologized
5.) “I understand Hitler… He’s not what you would call a good guy, but yeah, I understand much about him and I sympathize with him a little bit. But come on, I’m not for the Second World War, and I’m not against Jews… I am of course, very much for Jews. No, not too much, because Israel is a pain in the ass… I’m very much for Speer. Albert Speer [Hitler’s Architect]… He was also maybe one of God’s best children… Okay, I’m a Nazi.”
-Director Lars Von Trier was thrown out of the Cannes Film Festival after this rant. May 18, 2011. He later apologized
6.) “[Jews] want that sucker of Syrian blood to remain and continue to prey and suck blood. They not only want their security, but also to enjoy the sight of Syrian blood being spilled…. Asking myself why Jewish support of Bashar [Assad] increased after they saw the rivers of Syrian blood this mass- murderer spilled in Syrian towns, an old image leapt to my mind, of Jews bleeding people and using their blood to prepare matzas. Logic does not accept this, but the facts prove it.”
-Syrian writer Osama Al-Malouhi, an opponent of President Bashar Assad, posted on an opposition website, October 26, 2011, The Middle East Media Research Institute
7.) “Not all the Jews in the world are evil….The ratio is 60-40. Sixty percent are evil to varying degrees, all the way to a level that words cannot describe, while 40 percent are not evil.”
-Tawfig Okasha, a presidential candidate in post-Mubarak Egypt added that among the 40% of ‘non-evil’ Jews there is only one in a million who is blameless and that French President Nicolas Sarkozy is “one of those Jews who adhere to the Zionist ideology…one of the worst ideologies,” Al-Faraeen TV, October 31, 2011.
8.) “The source that finances and incites all these international organizations… especially in the Arab world… are led by a single, evil organization, known as Zionism. It is behind all these movements, all these civil wars, and all these evils… Jesus Christ healed the sick among the Jews… and resurrected their dead. [How did they repay him?] “They strived to crucify him until he died…”
“Do the people of the opposition [today]… belong to Christianity or to Islam? No. They are deeply rooted in Judaism and in Zionism… Any intelligent person who reads The Protocols of the Elders of Zion will see the extent of its influence on the politics of our region and the world.”
–George Saliba, Bishop of the Syrian Orthodox Church in Lebanon, Al-Dunya TV, July 24, 2011. The Middle East Media Research Institute
9.) “Oppose the moral blackmail of the so-called Holocaust! [“Arbeit macht Frei!”] Truth makes free!”
–Hermann Dierkes, leader of the Left Party in Duisburg, Germany, April 2011. Dierkes posted a flyer on the website with a swatiska morphing into a Star of David and called for a boycott of Israeli products, labelling Israel a “rogue state” and a “warmonger.” “Arbeit macht Frei!” is inscribed on the gates of Nazi concentration camps including Auschwitz and Dachau.
10.) “The state of Israel is an illegal, genocidal place… to equate Judaism with the state of Israel is to equate Christianity with [rapper] Flavor Flav”
– Rev. Jeremiah Wright in a speech to thousands of people, June 14, 2011, Baltimore, Maryland
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