Spain: Who spreads anti-Semitism amongst children?

Israel's ambassador in Spain Mr. Rafi Shotz received dozens of postcards from students ages 6 and 9 - including hand-written anti-Semitic messages such as “Jews kill for money,” “Evacuate the country for Palestinians,” and “Go to someplace where someone will be willing to accept you.” This was reported in a number of newspapers in the world.

Israel's foreign ministry officials told English daily Haaretz that the handwriting appears typical of children six to nine years old.

"Apparently there are anti-Semitic and anti-Israel individuals who get permission to operate within schools," the official said.

It further said, "Each time, the embassy has received several dozen postcards from a different school. And it seems as though whoever is doing this is moving from school to school."

Israeli government on Sunday [February 28, 2010] lodged a formal complaint with Spain, charging that anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism are being instilled in elementary students across parts of the country.

According to sources in the Foreign Ministry, this is an organized campaign by officials outside the education system in Spain that have been given permission to work with the students.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry had originally planned to summon the Spanish envoy to Israel, Alvaro Iranzo, to rebuke him. However, in an effort to prevent a diplomatic crisis, the ministry decided instead to discuss the matter with him via telephone. Naor Gilon, the Foreign Ministry's deputy director for Western Europe, spoke with Iranzo and said, “Israel feels strong discontent over the postcards sent by school students and views the matter with utmost gravity.”

The Spanish envoy explained that the postcards were a private initiative, and not one that is part of Spain's education ministry. Gilon said Israel understands this is not a government policy, but stressed that these types of initiatives have no place in schools and that Israel requests action be taken to have the campaign stopped.

This is truly very disturbing news for everyone in the world to witness that there is ongoing conspiracy even to poison the minds of innocent children in the world. Who are behind this? Surely it is a very legitimate question. I have no idea about the perpetrators behind such heinous crime, but would like to share something which is continuing in my own country – Bangladesh.

Iranian government maintains a huge Cultural Center in Dhaka [Capital city of Bangladesh] for decades. Millions of dollars are spent in continuing activities of this 'Cultural Center'. Main objective of this Iranian Mullah outlet is to spread anti-Semitic notions in the country as well encourage people in waving Jihad against Israel, United States and the West.

This 'Cultural Center' of Iran in Dhaka is publishing a monthly 'newsletter' for children targeting mostly school students in Bangladesh. According to information received from several sources, at least 75,000 copies of such hate speech material is printed by Iran and distributed free of cost amongst students and various educational institutions in the country. Most of the contents in this publication are concocted stories against Israel, United States and the West, made with an ulterior motive of poisoning the minds of the children in Bangladesh. I do not want to categorically say that Iran is behind such activities also in Spain, but such possibility cannot be simply turned down.

In recent years, the so-called embassy of Palestine in Dhaka was also engaged in recruiting Jihadists and was sending them to fight against Israel. Such recruitment was continuing almost openly. The former Palestinian ambassador in Bangladesh, Shahta Zarab [who now is Palestinian envoy in North Korea] was operating a huge network of drug trafficking in Bangladesh. Zarab is known to Bangladeshi media as a notorious play boy and a man, who used diplomatic status in continuing various forms of illegal activities. It was also reported in Bangladeshi media that, the millions of dollars earned by Shah Zarab was shared with his leader Yaseer Arafat.

When Shahta Zarab was Palestinian ambassador in Bangladesh, his team was spending certain amount of money in spreading anti-Semitic notions in the society as well were encouraging people in waving Jihad against Israel, USA and the West. When wrongdoings of this man reached a very intolerable scale, Bangladesh formally requested Palestine to withdraw him, as Dhaka was almost set to declare this man as 'persona non grata'.

While anti-Semitic activities are unfortunately spreading wings in various parts of the world, there are certain alarming sings of such activities even inside United States. In In January 2009, at a symposium at UCLA [choreographed by the Center for Near East Studies], four longtime Israel bashers were invited to analyze the human rights conditions in Gaza, and used the stage to attack the legitimacy of Zionism and its vision of a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians.

They criminalized Israel's existence, distorted its motives and maligned its character, its birth, even its conception. At one point, the excited audience reportedly chanted "Zionism is Nazism" and worse.

Jewish leaders condemned this hate-fest as a dangerous invitation to anti-Semitic hysteria, and pointed to the chilling effect it had on UCLA students and faculty on a campus known for its open and civil atmosphere. The organizers took refuge in “academic freedom” and argument that anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism.

I would like to mention here clearly that anti-Zionism rejects the very notion that Jews are a nation – a collective bonded by common history – and accordingly, denies Jews the right to self-determination in the historical birthplace while anti-Semitism rejects Jews as equal members of the human race; anti-Zionism rejects Israel as an equal member in the family of the nations. So, in other words, any anti-Zionist activities should been clearly seen as anti-Semitic as well. I fail to understand, why UCLA organized such symposium. Who were behind this?

I was particularly annoyed when Colombia University invited terror patron like Mahmoud Ahmedinejad and gave him the platform of spreading venom against Israel, Jews and all other anti-Jihadist forces in the world. Some of the so-called mainstream media especially some television channels surely showed real stupidity by broadcasting the message of hate of this Iranian Mullah.

While anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism is being spread under patronization of various quarters, known and unknown, it is very unfortunate that, the peace-loving people in the world, who are very much in majority in numbers, are either silent or very much reluctant in extending their supports towards anti-Jihadist as well Zionist activities in the world. Anti-Jihadist forces in the world deserve support from every peace-loving individual in the world forthwith!

On the other hand, we also need to be cautious about a section of opportunists, who are sitting in the West by taking political refuge thus pretending to be anti-Jihadists are actually running a mere Corporate type business by extracting fund from the people by scaring them with self-made stories. People are donating millions of dollars to those people, which mostly are used for buying their own luxury, instead of doing anything real in either motivating people, especially the Muslim nations against Jihad or combating the rise of Islamist militancy. While sitting in a Muslim country, we can take the risk of running an anti-Jihadist and Zionist newspaper like Weekly Blitz for years under extreme adversity, websites maintained by those so-called anti-Jihadist asylum seekers are nothing but promotional tool to popularize their own faces thus bringing in more donations to their mere business ventures.

Weekly Blitz fights militant Islam and wise of radical Islam thus opposing Sharia Law right from inside the Muslim nation, thus spreading our message to people as well policymakers for years. We have been successful in identifying several notorious Islamist militancy group like Hizbut Tahrir, Hizbut Towhid etc and recently even succeeded in getting one of them banned in Bangladesh. Our entire team is continuing virtual war against militant Islam, terrorism and Sharia Law, where we are seeing increasing number of readers showing interest in this newspaper from a number of Muslim nations including those pro-democracy forces in Iran and Saudi Arabia.

SALAH UDDIN SHOAIB CHOUDHURY
Journalist, Columnist, Author & Peace Activist
Skype: shoaibforyou
Editor & Publisher, Weekly Blitz www.weeklyblitz.net

PEN USA Freedom to Write Award 2005; AJC Moral Courage Award 2006

Key to the Englewood City, NJ, USA [Highest Honor] 2007; Monaco Media Award, 2007