State Department sponsoring sales of Mein Kampf
The US State Department is sponsoring the Abu Dhabi book fair at which
anti-Semitic books - including Hitler's
Mein Kampf - are being sold.
The U.S. State Department is listed as a “cultural partner” of the
24th Abu Dhabi International Book Fair, which is currently being held
(from April 30 to May 5). Among the anti-Semitic publications on display
at the fair (in both English and Arabic) – books which paved the way
for The Holocaust – are “The International Jew,” “Mein Kampf” and “The
Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion”.
“The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion” is now reported to be
the second most widely published book in the Arab world. It promotes
anti-Semitic conspiracy theories that Jews are planning global
domination.
Then other “cultural partners” for this year’s Abu Dhabi
International Book Fair include the French government TV channel France
24, National Geographic magazine, and the French Embassy. (There are, it
should be noted, many other titles on display at the book fair, which
are not anti-Semitic or have nothing to do with Jews.)
Several senior diplomats at the U.S. State Department, as well as a
number of French Foreign Ministry employees (not those stationed in Abu
Dhabi) subscribe to this website email list and one would hope they
would take steps to have the Book Fair’s organizers remove the
anti-Semitic titles.
Similar anti-Semitic literature appeared at the 2014 Casablanca Book
Fair and in the recent past at the Frankfurt Book Fair. For more, see this dispatch:
To me, this seems completely in line with State Department behavior.
Labels: anti-Semitism, Mein Kampf, United Arab Emirates, US State Department
'Little Kim' handing out copies of Mein Kampf to North Korean officials
In case you were wondering what he plans to do with those
nuclear weapons....
Senior North Korean officials received copies of “Mein Kampf,” Adolf
Hitler’s rambling prison memoir, as gifts for Kim Jong Un’s birthday
this January, according to a report by New Focus International, a North Korean news organization that sources from defectors and volunteer citizens within the country.
The famous Nazi autobiography was reportedly distributed as what’s
called a “hundred-copy book,” which refers to Pyongyang’s practice of
circulating an extremely limited number of copies among top officials,
though most books are forbidden in North Korea. Gifts marking the
leader’s birthday are typically imbued with special political
significance.
The book was apparently not distributed to endorse Nazism so much as
to draw attention to Germany’s economic and military reconstruction
after World War One. A North Korean who works on behalf of the country
in China told New Focus that Kim gave a speech endorsing Germany’s
inter-war revival and encouraging officials to read “Mein Kampf.”
“Kim Jong Un gave a lecture to high-ranking officials, stressing that
we must pursue the policy of Byungjin in terms of nuclear and economic
development,” New Focus’s North Korean source told them by phone.
“Byungjin” translates literally to “in tandem” and refers to official policy of developing the nuclear program and economy simultaneously.
The source continued, “Mentioning that Hitler managed to rebuild
Germany in a short time following its defeat in World War One, Kim Jong
Un issued an order for the Third Reich to be studied in depth and asked
that practical applications be drawn from it.”
I wonder whether his Iranian and Syrian allies handed it out too. What could go wrong?
Labels: Adolph Hitler, Kim Jong-Un, Mein Kampf, North Korea
Where is World Jewry?
I don't know how many of my readers came of age in the 1960's and 1970's. I spent most of the 1970's - particularly my four years at Bir Zeit on the Hudson in the latter part of the decade - attending demonstrations like the one pictured above (which is from the 1960's). I had a yarmulka that said "I am my brother's keepah." I wore a rusting silver bracelet of sorts (which quickly turned green) with the name of Anatoly (now Natan) Sharansky or Yosef Mendelevich on it. And I learned brilliant chants like these:
"Who do we want?"
"Kosygin" (Alexi Kosygin - then the Russian Prime Minister).
"How do we want him?"
"Dead."
And "2, 4, 6, 8, Israel is a Jewish state. 3, 5, 7, 9, there's no such thing as Palestine."
Evelyn Gordon wonders why this generation isn't reacting today like my (and I think her) generation reacted to the peril of Soviet Jewry. Why World Jewry isn't marching like the people in the picture above (and in the Rabbis' protest in front of the White House in 1943) did. Where is everyone?
But as Prof. Shlomo Avineri pointed out this month, even more troubling is the silence of world Jewry on this issue – a stark contrast to its activism over, say, Soviet Jews.
“Through demonstrations outside Soviet embassies, embarrassing questions about freedom of emigration at all news conferences of Soviet leaders in the West, and in dozens of other ways,” Avineri noted, Jewish activists turned the Soviets’ refusal to let Jews emigrate into a burden on the regime. But they haven’t done the same with Iran, even though there’s “no reason why demonstrations should not be held outside Iranian embassies in any place in the world, why Iranian ambassadors should not be accompanied at every appearance or trip by demonstrators carrying placards with ‘Holocaust deniers – out!’”
Partly, this may be due to a widespread sentiment that words matter less than deeds – which explains why Jewish groups have been active in trying to persuade Western governments to take stronger steps against Iran’s nuclear program. Yet ignoring Ahmadinejad’s calls for genocide is a grave mistake, for two reasons.
First, history amply proves that when tyrants declare their intention to slaughter the Jews, they often mean exactly what they say. Hitler, who made his intentions crystal clear in Mein Kampf 14 years before World War II began, is only the most famous example. Nor is this unique to Jews: Most genocides begin with incitement; that’s precisely why incitement to genocide is a prosecutable international crime that has already produced several convictions, especially in connection with the 1994 Rwanda genocide.
But beyond that, Jews worldwide should be concerned with the desensitization effect: By consistently advocating genocide without eliciting any serious condemnatory response, Ahmadinejad is gradually turning “kill the Jews” into acceptable public discourse.
Read it all. And then ask yourself what you've done this week, this month or this year to save the Jewish people.
By the way, the pictures (and I have a couple more downloaded) come from the Jacob Birnbaum Foundation. Jacob Birnbaum was the founder of the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry, which was one of the leading protest groups on behalf of Soviet Jewry in the US. (I would have got that trivia question wrong - I thought it was Glenn Richter). You can find these pictures and more
here.
Labels: Adolph Hitler, Iranian nuclear threat, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Mein Kampf, Soviet Jewry
Just what I want for Christmas!
Tom Gross reports that several branches of Waterstone's, Britain's largest bookseller, have been promoting Hitler's
Mein Kampf as the
perfect gift for Christmas.
Staff at a Waterstone’s branch in the northern English town of Huddersfield, for example, used a festive point-of-sale sticker to promote the book as “the perfect present” with an accompanying personal recommendation message by a staff member trumpeting the book as “an essential read for anyone”.
According to the (London) Jewish Chronicle, Waterstone’s stores in Manchester, Liverpool and elsewhere also displayed front covers of multiple copies of Mein Kampf, a sales technique designed to attract shoppers.
There has been remarkably little coverage of this story in Britain’s national press, though The Daily Telegraph and The Guardian did run short news items, and so did Fox News in America. (I have seen no editorials or comments pieces or letters to the editor.)
Several Jewish leaders regarded Waterstone’s apology as less than satisfactory.
A Waterstone’s spokesperson said: “We do not believe we actively promote this book; our customers are capable of forming their own opinions on whether to purchase it or not… However staff should not have used inappropriate seasonal stickers on the book. We will also communicate with all our branches at the earliest possible opportunity to remind them of the sensitivities surrounding our stocking of Mein Kampf.”
How sensitive.
/sarc
But then, given everything else coming out of Britain these days, I suppose we cannot be too surprised.
Labels: Adolph Hitler, British anti-Semitism, Mein Kampf
Virgin Megastores recommends Mein Kampf to its Arabic readers
This picture was taken at a
Virgin Megastore in Qatar. Note the recommendation on the right.
Elder of Ziyon points out that this isn't just a Qatari phenomenon - he found
this blog post from Bahrain that Virgin recommends
Mein Kampf there too.
Mein Kampf has been a best seller in Arabic for years - Lisa Goldman described it as being
the first book she saw for sale at Amman's Queen Alia airport in 2007 (she didn't mention the name of the bookshop, but she does mention Virgin in the same post when discussing the bookshop at Rafik al-Hariri airport in Beirut). And somehow I doubt that the prominent recommendation is so unusual either.
How about
this from September 2010?
But one thing that Beirutis have always been good at is carrying on regardless. Restaurants open, bougainvillea blooms expansively, books are launched, film festivals abound, and hapless journalists go about their business. Despite a friend telling me that Mein Kampf is on the Downtown Virgin Megastore’s bestseller list (It could be innocent. Could it?), the city is full of bright and beautiful ideas. Estella and I (my 1991 Kawasaki Estrella – she lost the ‘r’ in homage to the anti-heroine of Great Expectations) have had plenty to do sounding out bookish thoughts all over the city.
So what's new here?
What's new is that Virgin is owned by Richard Branson, who also owns Virgin Atlantic Airlines. Branson is British - not an Arab. And Branson's chain has just been 'outed' even though it's been marketing
Mein Kampf in the Arab world for years (and it's conceivable that the decisions are made by local management and Branson has little or no say in them).
Well, if it awakens the West to the virulent anti-Semitism in the Arab world, I am happy to pass it on.
Labels: Arab anti-Semitism, Mein Kampf
Defining anti-Semitism
Walter Russell Mead explains how to
define anti-Semitism.
The truth is that anti-Semitism is alive and well and not even particularly rare; it’s just that many of today’s anti-Semites like to think of themselves as enlightened, modern people and get all huffy and hissy if anyone accuses them of prejudice in any form. Many who in past times would have been open and honest about their anti-Semitism, now try to hide the truth even from themselves.
But anti-Semitism involves belief in any or all of the following ideas:
Jews are more clannish than other people and act in concert to support a specifically Jewish agenda.
Jews deploy extraordinary wealth with almost superhuman cunning in support of the Jewish agenda.
As a religious and national minority, Jews cannot flourish without attacking the traditional values of their host society. In every country Jews seek to weaken national culture, religion, values and cohesion.
Jews are not a national group or a people in the way that others are; they do not have the same right to establish a nation state that other peoples do.
Where Jewish interests are concerned, the appearance of open debate in our society and many others is a carefully constructed illusion. In reality, Jews work together to block open debate on issues they care about and those who resist the Jewish agenda are marginalized in public discussion.
These ideas are the five pillars of anti-Semitism; you don’t have to believe them all — any one will do. Being an anti-Semite does not necessarily make you a Nazi. You are an anti-Semite. That doesn’t make you a Nazi; Hitler added a sixth pillar of anti-Semitism that the only way to successfully oppose the Jewish agenda was to kill all the Jews.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: anti-Semitism, Mein Kampf, Walter Russell Mead
