Antisemitic rally held in Toronto

[shira]

TORONTO — The video starts innocuously enough with the introduction of Karin Brothers “from the United Church of Canada,” who intones a bland pronouncement of inclusiveness – “We need you.”
Subsequent speakers at the Al Quds Day Rally, held Aug. 28 at Queen’s Park, however, jacked up the rhetoric to levels that the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) believes was antisemitic.

Imam Zafar Bangash of the Islamic Society of York Region, said the U.S. president “would rather have Americans starve to death, but he cannot say no to the Zionist parasitical state.” He referred to the United States as a “stooge government” and to Barack Obama as “this black man in the White House.” As rally participants waved flags of Hezbollah – a banned terrorist organization – Bangash went on to call Zionists “racist,” “inhuman,” and “barbarians.”

Maulana Asad Jafri, described as a Khomeinist student from Qoms, Iran, said “whenever you see injustice happen, there is a one per cent, two per cent, 100 per cent involvement by the Zionist regime, the same Zionist regime that sucks the resources, the blood and everything that belongs to the people all across the world.”

Another speaker refers to Israel as a spreading cancer that either dies, taking the host body with it, or is itself killed.

more...
http://www.cjnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=22019&Itemid=86

video on youtube...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Sbm00mCPPc

[King_David]

1. Quite revealing nt

[elleng]

2. Revealing of what?

[King_David]

6. huh ??????? nt

[cali]

11. revealing what? that their are creepy bigots in the world?

or are you insinuating that all Palestinians/Arabs/Muslims are anti-semites. I hate to break this to you, your highness, but there are also bigoted hateful Jews... and Christians etc.

[shira]

14. No, the anti-Israel crowd tolerates the views in the OP more than they object to them.

I'd say anti-zionists who speak out against those views and are truly revolted are the EXCEPTION rather than the rule when it comes to anti-Israel sentiment.

What you see in that video is the Hamas, Hezbollah, and militant Fatah view. How many anti-zionists here at DU do you see fighting against such bigotry? At best they're indifferent to that kind of Nazi style hatred. They're the mirror image of the most militant and religious minded settlers.

[shaayecanaan]

3. Quite unacceptable rhetoric, and beyond the pale

I'm not sure who they think they're going to persuade with an appearance like that.

[bemildred]

7. Yep. nt

[Ken Burch]

8. Sounds like a splinter of a splinter

In any case, the mainstream pro-Palestinian movement can't be held responsible for these idiots.

To be condemned, and then roundly ignored.

[oberliner]

10. Zafar Bangash is very mainstream

Zafar Bangash is a noted Islamic movement journalist and commentator and a leader of the Muslim community in Toronto, Canada, and a strong advocate of Muslim unity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zafar_Bangash

[Fokker Trip]

4. Anti-Semitism and Anti-Zionism are not the same thing.

[holdencaufield]

5. That depends...

If you just going to substitute the word "zionist" for the word "Jew" and continue to spout anti-semitic diatribes then they are precisely the same thing. Examples "Zionists are racist", "Zionists are sneaky", "Zionists can't be trusted" ad naseum.

If you have a problem with the Israeli government and raise legitimate issues that don't hold Israel to a higher standard than her enemies or other countries around the world -- that is NOT Anti-Semitism.

Interesting historical irony -- using the term "Semites" to refer to Jews was started in the 19th Century by Jew-hating German/Prussians to highlight how different Jews were from Europeans. It was meant as a derogatory term and a euphemism for Jews.

[Ken Burch]

9. It is anti-Semitic to use phrases like "Zionist Occupation Government:(ZOG)"

Also, it's antisemitic to speak of Israel and "The Jews" as if they are synonyms.

Those who want the current situation in Israel to be replaced by a unitary state in which Jewish Israels and Palestinian Arabs live as equals and in which the state is secular are NOT antisemitic, however. Not realistic at this point, but not antisemitic.

To achieve such a state in the long-term(which would probably be ultimately necessary)there would need to be a major reconciliation project, involving not only compensation, but acknowledgement of various injustices and apologies for them. It would also involve an admission that both national communities have equal roots in the areas under question.

None of that will happen any time soon.

And the EU's cynical equation of anti-Zionism with antisemitism is neither sacred nor of any real value. There is a massive difference between people who support a unitary state because they believe the present arrangement is inherently unjust to Palestinians, on the one hand, and people who want a judenrein world. The two groups have nothing in common.

[holdencaufield]

12. Agree -- except about a one-state system

There are two general reasons to support a single-state solution. The first reason is a VERY optimistic (bordering on fanciful) idea that a Jewish minority in Israel will result in regional harmony and protection for the Jews. This reasoning is NOT anti-Semitic.

The other reason is a cynical belief (grounded in fact) that a Jewish minority in Israel will be marginalized and ultimately removed from the region. This IS anti-Semitic.

Israel is a Jewish State for only one reason (and it has nothing to do with the bible) and that is history has shown over-and-over that a Jewish minority living under the protection of a host government is not safe. Jews, as community, are an easily identifiable and extremely convenient scapegoat for local power structures to exploit or condemn. For no other group in human history has this been so widely and universally demonstrated.

In order for Jews to survive as a people -- they must be autonomous. It is a shame on the entire world that Israel as a Jewish state must exist -- but exist it MUST. For the sake of the survival of the Jewish people, the concept of a Jewish majority state at perpetual war with its neighbours is preferable to a single-state where the autonomy of Jews is eliminated.

Seeking to destroy the Jewish State -- either through war or assimilation -- is a threat to the continued existence of Jews in the world and anti-Semitic.

[shira]

13. Ken, what about those here who want 1 state and KNOW how bad that would be for Jews?

For these people, they can't claim they don't know better.

And still they're anti-zionists.

You don't see anything wrong with them?