Wednesday 19 January 2011

Israeli School Racism Increases, Canadian Synagogues and Jewish School Vandalized

Tim King Salem-News.com
Jews in Canada see synagogues vandalized along with a school, while teachers in Israel report increasing death threats toward Arab people; when does the madness end?

Death To Arabs Graffiti - File alarab.net
Swastika in Canada - Reuters


(SALEM / TEL AVIV / MONTREAL) - Teachers working in Jewish Israeli Schools say they are seeing more instances of racism and that the behavior is reaching alarming levels.
Students are expressing views of hatred toward Arab people; to the level of advocating for killing them. The problems are spiraling out of control and educators in the Jewish state are concerned for the future with the students expressing this hatred.
Teachers at one Tel Aviv school said they found graffiti written on school walls and papers advocating death and violence toward minorities. One Israeli student in the twelfth grade actually wrote "Death to Arabs" on his exam paper.
At the same time this news is released, we learn that Canada's Jewish community is concerned over the orchestrated vandalism on four synagogues and a Jewish school in Montreal, where windows were shattered Saturday night.

What is going on, why this today?

Arab hatred in Israel on the rise, while Anti-Semitic incidents are taking place in Canada.
Rabbi Reuben Poupko, chairman of Montreal's Jewish Community Security Coordinating Committee, told Ha’aretz that Saturday night's attacks are by far the most severe series of attacks they have seen. He is happy with the response from public authorities who are quick to dedicate resources for apprehending the perpetrators and securing Jewish facilities.

Canada's Jews view the events on Saturday as a reminder they too face similar dangers as other Jewish communities around the world.
"We take it seriously, we had attacks in the past, our job is to protect our institutions. We can't stop everything, but we're gratified by the authorities' quick response," Rabbi Reuben Poupko said.
The escalation of racial hatred in Canada and Israel is growing, as are the number of governments worldwide supporting the declaration of a free Palestinian state, and the number of Israeli 'hasbara' public relation campaigns attempting to increase hatred of Palestinian and Arab people at large. We have published two examples of this in the last two days:

Jan-18-2011: Israel Targets Free Gaza Movement with Repulsive Propaganda - Michael Leon for Salem-News.com

Jan-18-2011: Calling the Kettle Black - Bigotry and Racism in San Fransisco - Tim King Salem-News.com
A teacher in Israel says students are showing more signs of violence and hatred directed against Arabs, to the point that a student at a School in Tel Aviv told his teacher during class that his dream is to become a soldier so he can exterminate all Arabs; several students in his class clapped in support to his statement.

Teachers in different schools said that they saw graffiti stating “Death to Arabs”, A Dead Arab is a Good Arab”, “Kahana Was Right”, and other racist slogans.

An Israeli education official said that latest incidents indicate an alarming level of hatred and racism not only against the Arabs, but also against other minorities in the country.

The official said that some Israeli political leaders are responsible for this phenomenon explaining that the issue here is not about a number of extremist students, but a group of ordinary students who became encouraged to express racist attitude due to increasing levels of racism among Israeli political leaders.
He added that the student who wrote “Death To Arabs” is a who has very good grades and an excellent school record.

A teacher at a northern Israeli school said that a number of students say Arabs are better dead. Several expressed attitudes supporting killing all Arabs. It was also reported that students who oppose such racist views are afraid to express their opinions.

Israeli teachers signed a petition 3 weeks ago warning of the alarming levels of racism among Jewish students.

Back in Canada, Rabbi Chaim Steinmetz of Congregation Tifereth Beth David Jerusalem in Cote St. Luc told Haaretz, "Vandalism like this is in some ways like terrorism ¬ you don't know what the people involved are capable of, and what they may do next time ... we will have to tighten security, and make sure we can prevent similar attacks and worse in the future."

It is interesting that one group compares the racism to 'terrorism'. Of course this is consistent with Israel's desire to portray Arabs as terrorists as mentioned above. It seems the entire bout of racism is easily traced back to the politics of Israel and their false use of the word 'terrorism' when in fact Israel in every logical way a terrorist nation itself with religious zealots at the helm; a dangerous course to maintain.

From the 18 Feb. 2010 story: Israeli Filmmakers Underscore Tragedy of Conflict with Palestine - Tim King Salem-News.com

Israeli filmmakers Erez Tadmor & Guy Nattiv, who recently finished writing their first personal feature script "The son of god", are the creators of two short movie Moosh & Mabul which won over 40 international film festivals awards.

I discovered the work of this talented pair, and was glad to see Israeli filmmakers looking at the Palestine/Israel conflict in a way that magnifies the tragedy and loss, while underscoring how pointless it is for the Jews and Arabs to be on opposing sides in the first place. It seemed like this article was a good place to republish the two pieces that say so much.

Here is the seven minute film, 'Strangers'


Another short film, Offside, is the second short film in the trilogy by Erez Tadmor & Guy Nattiv that is based on the Middle East conflict.

They describe this short as a follow-up to their last short film Strangers, Offside was shot in Israel, during September 2005, in the security zone that separates Israel from the Palestine Authority.

Here is the short film, 'Offside'

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Tim King: Salem-News.com Editor and Writer
Tim King is a former U.S. Marine with twenty years of experience on the west coast as a television news producer, photojournalist, reporter and assignment editor. In addition to his role as a war correspondent, this Los Angeles native serves as Salem-News.com's Executive News Editor. Tim spent the winter of 2006/07 covering the war in Afghanistan, and he was in Iraq over the summer of 2008, reporting from the war while embedded with both the U.S. Army and the Marines.
Tim holds numerous awards for reporting, photography, writing and editing, including the Oregon AP Award for Spot News Photographer of the Year (2004), first place Electronic Media Award in Spot News, Las Vegas, (1998), Oregon AP Cooperation Award (1991); and several others including the 2005 Red Cross Good Neighborhood Award for reporting. Tim has several years of experience in network affiliate news TV stations, having worked as a reporter and photographer at NBC, ABC and FOX stations in Arizona, Nevada and Oregon. Serving the community in very real terms, Salem-News.com is the nation's only truly independent high traffic news Website. As News Editor, Tim among other things, is responsible for publishing the original content of 65 Salem-News.com writers. He reminds viewers that emails are easily missed and urges those trying to reach him, to please send a second email if the first goes unanswered. You can send Tim an email at this address: newsroom@salem-news.com

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