Anti-Semitism in Europe

Envoy: 'German Jews feel unsafe' taken from BBC Worldwide News


Michael Regener was convicted of spreading racial hatred. The Israeli ambassador to Germany has said he is concerned for Jews in Germany, against the background of what he says is rising anti-semitism there.
In a newspaper interview, Shimon Stein said the number of neo-Nazis in Germany had also increased.
The interview appeared as neo-Nazi sympathisers gathered outside Berlin's Tegel Prison to demand the release of a singer jailed for three years.
A court ruled that Michael Regener's band was spreading racial hatred.
Mr Stein told the Neue Osnabruecker Zeitung he believed there was a greater willingness on behalf of neo-Nazis to use violence.
"I have the feeling that Jews in Germany do not feel safe. They are not always able to practice their religion freely," he said.
He said tightened security had been put in place around synagogues and other institutions.
He said the fact that neo-Nazis had made gains in recent regional elections showed that these tendencies could no longer be dismissed are marginal.
Rising violence
More than 1,200 neo-Nazis from across Europe were due to march on Tegel Prison on Saturday to demand Regener's release.
In March 2005, a German court rejected an appeal by the singer - aka "Lunikoff" - to have his sentence repealed.
Germany has strict laws against promoting Nazism or using Nazi symbols.
Three years ago, a Berlin court found the band Landser - meaning "foot soldiers" - guilty of spreading hatred of Jewish people and foreigners in Germany.
Landser's CD titles include The Reich Will Rise Again and Get The Enemy.
In February 2005, thousands of neo-Nazis marched through Dresden on the 60th anniversary of the allied bombing of the city.
It was one of the biggest far-right demonstrations in Germany's post-war history.
Last year the far-right National Democratic Party (NPD) won 9% of the vote in Saxony, giving it seats in a German state assembly for the first time since 1968.
In May, German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble urged extra vigilance from the public to help tackle a rise in far-right extremism.
He said there should be no "no-go areas" for foreigners, as he presented an official report showing a rise in neo-Nazi violence in 2005.

Saner Voices in Iran

Editorial from New York Times on 12/20/06 . . . Notice how the article does not mention nor credit the Bush Administration's nearly unilaterial efforts to confront Iran while still respecting the E.U., China, Russia and the rest . . . as if it is all happening by magic....


Saner Voices in Iran

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran has not been having a very good month, this is good news both for the beaten-down people of Iran and for the outside world.
The populist demagogue, it seems, is not so popular with important elements of Iranian society growing uneasy over the price Iran may have to pay for his belligerent pursuit of nuclear technology. This week, Mr. Ahmadinejad’s oil minister acknowledged that foreign banks were pulling back from financing Iranian oil projects because of the worsening nuclear dispute.
The clearest evidence of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s troubles came in last week’s elections for municipal offices and the national council that oversees the work of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Mr. Ahmadinejad’s supporters fared surprisingly poorly. The main gainers came from two very different opposition groups, one aligned with former President Ali Rafsanjani, an establishment conservative, and the other with remnants of the cautious reform movement led by former President Mohammad Khatami.
Mr. Rafsanjani, a venomous foe of Israel (with his own nuclear appetites), is so notorious for the corruption that marred his presidency that his political career had almost gone into eclipse. Mr. Khatami’s followers are more high-minded, but still managed to fumble Iran’s best chance for reform in decades. What distinguishes them from Mr. Ahmadinejad’s supporters is their recognition that Iran exists in the real world. They understand that its future requires good relations with foreign investors, trade partners and educational institutions.
Mr. Ahmadinejad has been systematically dynamiting those relations, by defying the International Atomic Energy Agency and the United Nations and with his loathsome circus of Holocaust denial. Though meant to whip up voters, that travesty failed to save his supporters from electoral defeat.
Last week, in a remarkable show of courage, students at one of Tehran’s elite universities openly denounced Mr. Ahmadinejad as a dictator and a fascist, forcing him to cut short his planned address.
Their anger had been stoked by a blatantly political purge of professors and students, a crackdown on basic personal freedoms, and worries that economic mismanagement and diplomatic provocations were blighting their future. Two weeks ago, the students chanted, “Forget the Holocaust — do something for us.” Last week, one of them told a reporter: “A nuclear program is our right. But we fear that it will do more harm than good.”
Indeed it would, and it is encouraging to hear there are Iranians who recognize that threat. Washington needs to keep pushing for effective economic sanctions that will compel Mr. Ahmadinejad to recognize it as well.

When in Doubt, Shout about Israel

December 15, 2006

When in Doubt, Shout About Israel

by Victor Davis Hanson

These are strange times. Perennially beleaguered Israel, for instance, was hit all summer long with rockets from Lebanon and Gaza, as the world watched and kept score in an absurd new game of proportionality: Israel was to be blamed because its hundreds of air strikes against combatants were lethal, while Hezbollah was to be excused for shooting off thousands of rockets aimed at civilians because of its relative incompetence.

More "Israel Did It!"