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The Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Antisemitism
Newsletter
Volume 4 No. 6
2 October 2009

YIISA SPECIAL EVENT
Wednesday, October 7, 2009 @ 7:30pm
“The Case for Israel” – FREE PUBLIC SCREENING
Location:        Sheffield-Sterling-Strathcona Hall (SSS), Auditorium 114, 1 Prospect Street
Speaker:         Professor Alan Dershowitz, Harvard Law

YIISA LECTURE
Thursday, October 8, 2009 @ 4:15pm
“Iran: Ideology and Foreign Policy from Khomnini to Khamene’i”
Location:        77 Prospect Street, Room A-002
Speaker:         Brandon Friedman, Research Fellow, Center for Iranian Studies, Tel Aviv University

LECTURE OF INTEREST FEATURING YIISA RESEARCHER
Thursday, October 8, 2009 – Friday, October 9, 2009
“The Challenges of Freedom Conference”
Location:        Krakow, Poland
Sponsor:         Villa Decius
Speaker:         Dr. Michelle Sieff, Post-Doctoral Associate, YIISA
Dr. Michelle Sieff will sit on the “Parallel Worlds” Panel and her lecture is entitled “The Meaning of Freedom Post 1989 Africa.”

SPECIAL NOTES OF INTEREST

Charles Small, Director of YIISA, visits China
Last week, Charles gave seminar presentations and attended meetings at Fudan University, the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies (SIIS), and the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences.  He discussed aspects of contemporary global antisemitism, including the demonisation of Israel and the threat this posses to the international community.   Future academic cooperation and exchanges are planned.

Klausen speaks on censorship
(Yale Daily News) At a talk sponsored by the Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Antisemitism, Jytte Klausen, author of the book “The Cartoons that Shook the World,” focused on the content and issues raised in her book about blasphemy and Islamophobia. But most of the following question-and-answer session was devoted to questions about her reaction to the decision to remove the images from her book.
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Cartoonist’s visit causes stir
(Yale Daily News) Four years and a day after cartoons of the prophet Muhammad appeared in a Danish newspaper, Yale’s campus was abuzz with disagreement over those very cartoons.
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REPORT

Targeting Israelis via International Law
(The Middle East Quarterly) Aren't war crimes clear and cut; shouldn't those who commit them be pursued with the full force of the law? This essay tries to answer those questions and others.
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ARTICLES OF INTEREST

IRAN

Iran’s Statement May Offer Window Into Nuclear Efforts
(NY Times) The chief of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, Ali Akbar Salehi said he was preparing a letter for international inspectors in Vienna “about the location of the facility,” adding, cryptically, “and others.” This reference — widely interpreted in the intelligence world as meaning other nuclear sites — has given investigators guarded hope that more pieces of the Iranian nuclear puzzle may finally be coming into view.
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Iran ‘has secret nuclear arms plan’
(Financial Times) Britain’s intelligence services say that Iran has been secretly designing a nuclear warhead “since late 2004 or early 2005”, an assessment that suggests Tehran has embarked on the final steps towards acquiring nuclear weapons capability.
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Iran Has No Right to Nuclear Technology
(Wall Street Journal) Mattias Kuentzel says accepting Iran's "right" to nuclear power is a recipe for disaster.
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As U.S. Plots Iran Strategy, Envoy’s Visit Hints at a Thaw
(NY Times) As the United States and Iran prepared for critical talks over Tehran’s nuclear program, the Iranian foreign minister arrived quietly in Washington to visit the unofficial embassy here, the first visit to the capital by an Iranian of that rank in a decade.
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Obama’s opportunity in Iran
(Boston.com) Nicholas Burns writes, "President Obama’s accusation that Iran has lied about a secret nuclear plant gives the United States the most important opportunity in years to pressure Tehran to forgo its nuclear weapons ambitions."
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France Toughens Stance on Iran
(Washington Post) Sarkozy's sharp tone hints at impatience over nuclear standoff.
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A Nuclear Debate: Is Iran Designing Warheads?
(NY Times) Behind the US, Britain and France's show of unity about Iran’s clandestine efforts to manufacture nuclear fuel, however, is a continuing debate among American, European and Israeli spies about a separate component of Iran’s nuclear program: its clandestine efforts to design a nuclear warhead.
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The home stretch
(Haaretz) Avi Shavit writes, "Very belatedly, the U.S. president, French president, British prime minister and German chancellor are trying to impose a real diplomatic siege on Iran. They are doing everything that can be done via diplomatic efforts to try to stop the catastrophic centrifuges of Natanz and Qom."
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Possibility of a Nuclear-Armed Iran Alarms Arabs
(NY Times) As the West raises the pressure on Iran over its nuclear program, Arab governments, especially the small, oil-rich nations in the Persian Gulf, are growing increasingly anxious. But they are concerned not only with the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran but also with the more immediate threat that Iran will destabilize the region if the West presses too hard.
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China’s Ties With Iran Complicate Diplomacy
(NY Times) Leaders of the House Foreign Affairs Committee swept into Beijing last month to meet with Chinese officials, carrying a plea from Washington: if Iran were to be kept from developing nuclear weapons, China would have to throw more diplomatic weight behind the cause.
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Oil, Ideology Keep China From Joining Push Against Iran
(Washington Post) In its effort to muster support for sterner action against Iran, the Obama administration will have to overcome China's reluctance to punish a country that is one of its top oil suppliers and a major beneficiary of its energy-related investments.
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Big Oil Traders Cut Shipments to Tehran Amid Sanctions Talk
(Wall Street Journal) Some big oil traders have quietly scaled back or are preparing to halt fuel shipments to Iran amid uncertainty over whether the U.S. and Western powers will impose sanctions against the Islamic Republic for its nuclear program.
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In Dispute With Iran, Path to Iraq Is in Spotlight
(NY Times) Now the United States’ confrontation with Iran over its nuclear program is heating up, with the disclosure last week that the Iranian government is building a second uranium enrichment complex it had not previously acknowledged.
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MIDDLE EAST

The End of the Beginning
(The New Republic) After nine flailing months, Obama is starting to get a handle on the Middle East peace process.
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PA envoy to Geneva: We'll withdraw support for Goldstone report
(YNet) Ahead of UN Rights Council vote, Palestinian envoy says PA won't back adopting of Gaza war report. Israeli envoy says Netanyahu, Lieberman's efforts contributed to decision
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Right of Reply: Goldstone's sorry search for symmetry
(Jerusalem Post) Elihu Richter writes, "I can prove the phoniness of Judge Goldstone's claim in his Jerusalem Post op-ed September 22 in which he claimed that had the Israeli Government submitted its case to his Commission, the latter could have been encouraged to move in a new direction, "beneficial to Israeli interests." The implication of Goldstone's statement is that Israel, not the Commission, is responsible for the latter's errors of omission and commission."
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Christians tempted to emigrate as Lebanon grows increasingly 'Islamized'
(Daily Star) One-third of the nation’s Christian population has left since the beginning of the 1975-90 Civil War, and a recent surge in emigration means Christians now make up just 34 percent of Lebanon’s population
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EUROPE

Israeli FM accuses Norway of Antisemitic policy
(Jerusalem Post) Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman fiercely criticized the Norwegian government during the UN General Assembly in New York, demanding answers from Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre regarding talks Oslo had been holding with Hamas.
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Try Ahmadinejad in the Hague, German politicians say
(JTA) On the eve of Sunday's national elections in Germany, members of the main political parties responded to a questionnaire on the fight against Antisemitism and policy on Iran.
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The Mufti of Berlin
(Wall Street Journal) Daniel Schwammenthal writes, "One widespread myth about the Mideast conflict is that the Arabs are paying the price for Germany's sins. The notion that the Palestinians are the "second victims" of the Holocaust contains two falsehood."
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It's time for a Jewish boycott of the Ukraine
(Haaretz) Anshel Pfeffer writes, "Perhaps not a total boycott, at least not at first, but at the very least some symbolic gestures.”
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NORTH AMERICA

Playing the Antisemitism card
(Boston.com) A reader writes, "Just as criticism of George Bush’s policies and the shortsighted morass his administration got our country in is pro-American in the truest sense, it is in fact the very opposite of antisemitism to criticize the shortsighted policies and go-it-alone philosophy of the recent political leadership of Israel."
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MISCELLANEOUS

Militant Group Is Intact After Mumbai Siege
(NY Times) Ten months after the devastating attacks in Mumbai by Pakistan-based militants, the group behind the assault remains largely intact and determined to strike India again, according to current and former members of the group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, and intelligence officials.
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Argentina ex-president charged with obstructing Jewish center bombing probe
(Haaretz) Former Argentine President Carlos Menem has been charged with obstructing the investigation into the 1994 bombing attack on the Israelite Mutual Association building in Buenos Aires.
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Weekly Quotes: Canadian Institute for Jewish Research

We are here to announce that yesterday in Vienna, the United States, the United Kingdom, and France presented detailed evidence to the IAEA demonstrating that the Islamic Republic of Iran has been building a covert uranium enrichment facility near Qom for several years.... The existence of this facility underscores Iran's continuing unwillingness to meet its obligations under U.N. Security Council resolutions and IAEA requirements.... Iran's decision to build yet another nuclear facility without notifying the IAEA represents a direct challenge to the basic compact at the center of the non-proliferation regime.... "Iran has a right to peaceful nuclear power that meets the energy needs of its people. But the size and configuration of this facility is inconsistent with a peaceful program. Iran is breaking rules that all nations must follow -- endangering the global non-proliferation regime, denying its own people access to the opportunity they deserve, and threatening the stability and security of the region and the world...." -- U.S. President Barack Obama, alongside British PM Gordon Brown and French Pres. Nicolas Sarkozy during the G20 meeting in Pittsburgh, indicating that Western leaders are running out of patience with Iran's deceptive and dangerous nuclear-weapons proliferation. (Office of the White House Press Secretary, Sept. 25)

"This is a brutal, cynical, corrupt, antisemitic regime that exploits the Palestinian cause and deliberately maintains a hostile posture to the West to justify its grip on power. A regime that relates to its own people with such coercive force is not going to be sweet-talked out of its nuclear program. Negotiating with such a regime without the reality of sanctions and the possibility of force is like playing baseball without a bat." -- New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman, arguing that Western powers should take a hard line against Iran's nuclear ambitions, as well as against its current regime. "Obama officials want to be careful not to say that all they care about is a deal that neutralizes Iran's nukes, and, if we get that, we have no problem with those in power in Tehran. That would be a rebuff of Iranian democrats." (New York Times, Sept. 23)

"We are not going to discuss anything related to our nuclear rights, but we can discuss disarmament, we can discuss non-proliferation and other general issues... The new site is part of our rights and there is no need to discuss it." -- Iran nuclear chief, Vice-President Ali Akbar Salehi, reiterating Tuesday that Iran would not discuss its rights to nuclear facilities at the upcoming meeting with the six world powers in Geneva on Thursday. He added that Iran would not abandon its nuclear activities "even for a second." (Jerusalem Post, Sept. 29)

"The Iranians have the intention of having nuclear weapons.... This is part of a pattern of deception and lies on the part of the Iranians from the very beginning with respect to their nuclear program.... If this were a peaceful nuclear program, why didn't they announce this site when they began to construct it? Why didn't they allow IAEA inspectors from the very beginning?" -- US Defence Secretary Robert Gates speaking to ABC News about the revelations of a secret second nuclear plant at Qom at a military base controlled by the Revolutionary Guards. This new plant will hold 3,000 centrifuges that will soon allow it to produce nuclear fuel. Gates said the U.S. was not ruling out a military solution to this development, but still preferred diplomacy and sanctions. "The reality is that there is no military option that does anything more than buy time.... The estimates are three years or so." (ABC News, Sept. 27; Jerusalem Post, Sept. 27)

"Nearly 62 years ago, the United Nations recognized the right of the Jews, an ancient people 3,500 years-old, to a state of their own in their ancestral homeland.... The United Nations was founded after the carnage of World War II and the horrors of the Holocaust. It was charged with preventing the recurrence of such horrendous events.... "Yesterday, the man who calls the Holocaust a lie spoke from this podium.... [T]o those who gave this Holocaust-denier a hearing, I say on behalf of my people, the Jewish people, and decent people everywhere: Have you no shame? Have you no decency? A mere six decades after the Holocaust, you give legitimacy to a man who denies that the murder of six million Jews took place and pledges to wipe out the Jewish state. What a disgrace! What a mockery of the charter of the United Nations!..." -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking before the UN General Assembly, deploring the body for having compromised its integrity by allowing the forum to be degraded by the Iranian dictator. (Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Sept. 24)

"We have to be careful not to encourage the world to think that Israel was established because of the Holocaust. When Obama said so in Egypt, there was a justified uproar. It is wrong to compare any event in history to the Holocaust, because it minimizes the most horrible historic event that happened to the Jewish people. It also makes Israeli citizens feel less secure. The Jews of Israel in 2009 are not the Jews of Europe in 1939, and I've said this to Netanyahu." -- Leader of Israel's Kadima party, Tzipi Livni, in a televised interview, criticizing PM Benjamin Netanyahu's speech at the UN General Assembly for focusing on the Holocaust. (Jerusalem Post, Sept. 27)

"This week, with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad set to address the United Nations General Assembly, on behalf of Canada, I proudly decided that I would stand up and walk out. The reasons behind our decision to boycott may be obvious, but are nonetheless worth repeating. Firstly, Iran has violated the human rights of its own citizens and foreign nationals, including Canadians Maziar Bahari (by unjustifiably detaining him) and Zahra Kazemi (whose death remains unexplained). This recently also has been demonstrated in its violent response against protestors following the fraudulent presidential election. Second, Ahmadinejad continually denies that the Holocaust -- one of the greatest crimes in human history -- ever occurred. Finally, Iran refuses to cease its quest to become a nuclear power, which not only threatens Israel's very existence, but also regional and global stability. As I said in March 2009, a nuclear threat against Israel is a nuclear threat against all of us." -- Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs Lawrence Cannon, in a National Post editorial, explaining exactly why he and the rest of the Canadian delegation to the UN General Assembly walked out when Iranian Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took the rostrum to deny the Holocaust and spew antisemitism last week. (National Post, Sept. 24)

"Now is the time for action. A culture of impunity in the region has existed for too long. The lack of accountability for war crimes and possible crimes against humanity has reached a crisis point; the ongoing lack of justice is undermining any hope for a successful peace process and reinforcing an environment that fosters violence. Time and again, experience has taught us that overlooking justice only leads to increased conflict and violence." -- Judge Richard Goldstone, before the Human Rights Council in Geneva, defending his much-criticized UN Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict report, and calling on the international community to end the violations of international law in Israel and the Palestinian territories. (Jerusalem Post, Sept. 29)

"On May 14, 2008, my life was changed forever. I was working in my clinic. Suddenly, the building was hit by a missile, fired from Gaza. I was terribly wounded. Blood was everywhere. My patient was also wounded, and more than one hundred others. Next month will be my eighth operation. Judge Goldstone, I told you all of this, in detail. I testified in good faith. You sent me this letter, saying, 'Your testimony is an essential part of the Mission's fact-finding activities.'

"But now I see your report. I have to tell you: I am shocked. Judge Goldstone, in a five-hundred page report, why did you completely ignore my story? My name appears only in passing, in brackets, in a technical context. I feel humiliated.

"Why are there only two pages about Israeli victims like me, who suffered thousands of rockets over eight years? Why did you choose to focus on the period of my country's response, but not on that of the attacks that caused it? Why did you not tell me that this Council judged Israel guilty in advance, in its meeting of last January? Why did you not tell me that members of your panel signed public letters judging Israel guilty in advance? Judge Goldstone, you, too, signed such a letter, saying you were 'shocked' about Gaza. But where were you when Gaza attacked my medical clinic, in violation of international human rights and humanitarian law?

"Where was this Council? Why were you all silent? Thank you, Mr. President." -- Dr. Mirela Siderer, a resident of Sderot, Israel, during a surprise appearance at the UN Human Rights Council, challenging Judge Richard Goldstone and his Fact Finding Mission to Gaza. Siderer's appearance was arranged by the UN Watch NGO. (UN Watch Briefing, Sept. 29, National Post, Sept. 29)

"Fear or the idea of risking my life never influence me that much.... [As a pilot] you could save a life or stop a terrorist, you could feel as if you had done something significant.... [I have gained] a deeper understanding of my father... more and more I want to connect to him.... I am three weeks into the class and I already feel that I am fulfilling a sort of dream that started when I was very young." -- Late Israeli Air Force pilot and son of Israel's first astronaut Ilan Ramon, Assaf Ramon, speaking in a recorded tape that was aired on Channel 2. Assaf Ramon was killed on Sept. 13 at the age of 21 when his F-16 fighter crashed in the West Bank. His father was killed aboard the Columbia space shuttle when it exploded in 2003. (Jerusalem Post, Sept. 27)

Short Takes

TEHERAN TEST-FIRES LONG-RANGE MISSILES -- (Teheran) Iran tested its longest-range missiles last week and warned they can reach Israel, parts of Europe and U.S. military bases in the Mideast. "Iranian missiles are able to target any place that threatens Iran," said Abdullah Araqi, a senior Revolutionary Guards official. The tests, conducted Sept. 27 and 28, added urgency to a key meeting planned this week between Iran and the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany. (Globe and Mail, Sept. 29)

JORDAN BANS PLANNED ANTI-ISRAEL DEMO -- (Jerusalem) Jordanian authorities have refused to permit a demonstration which the country's Islamic groups planned for Friday in reaction to the entry into the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem by Israeli police earlier this week. Clashes had broken out on Sunday between some 150 Muslim worshippers and police after a group of French Jewish tourists entered the Temple Mount compound accompanied by a police force. The clashes, in which at least 15 Palestinians and 17 Israeli policemen were injured and another 11 arrested, sparked a series of angry reactions in Jordan and elsewhere in Arab and Islamic countries. (Ha'aretz, Sept. 30)

GOV'T MISHANDLED GAZA EVACUEES: REPORT -- (Jerusalem) Former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert's government failed to resettle the Gaza Strip evacuees and it is now up to PM Benjamin Netanyahu to treat the program as the high priority national mission that it is, the state commission of inquiry into the government's handling of the evacuees declared Tuesday. Meanwhile, the IDF Central Command has established a new rapid-response security team responsible for cracking down on violent right-wing extremists, and preventing violence between Jewish settlers and Palestinians in the West Bank. Tension has been on the rise in West Bank settlements in recent months since Defense Minister Ehud Barak announced plans to evacuate some 23 illegal outposts throughout the territories. (Jerusalem Post, Sept. 24 & 29)

KIEV MAYOR SCRAPS BABI YAR HOTEL PLAN -- (Kiev) Kiev Mayor Leonid Chernovetsky reversed a decision by authorities in the Ukranian capital to build a three-star hotel -- called The Babi Yar -- on a killing field used by the Nazis during the Babi Yar massacre. Jewish groups, led by Israeli Pres. Shimon Peres, had condemned the plan on Sept. 27, days before the 68th anniversary of the massacre. The hotel would have been placed on what was believed to be the main killing site. More than 33,700 Jews were shot at Babi Yar over two days beginning Sept. 29, 1941. In the ensuing months, the ravine was filled with an estimated 100,000 bodies. (Jerusalem Post, Sept. 27; New York Times, Sept. 29)

NETANYAHU WANTS GOLDSTONE REPORT INQUIRY -- (Jerusalem) Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu plans to present a proposal to his cabinet Oct. 1 to establish an investigative committee to probe the findings of the Goldstone Commission report on the Gaza conflict. Meanwhile, 32 U.S. senators signed a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton demanding the U.S. block any Goldstone-related punitive measures against Israel at the UN. (Ha'aretz, Jerusalem Post, Sept. 30)

SAUDI ARABIA DENIES OFFERING ISRAELIS FLIGHT PATH TO IRAN -- (Tel Aviv) Saudi Arabia denied Wednesday a report in Britain's Sunday Express that said the Kingdom offered the Israel Air Force flight paths to attack Iranian nuclear facilities. The Sunday Express reported this week that the Saudis had agreed to turn a blind eye and not interfere should the U.S. and Israel attack Iranian nuclear facilities via Saudi air space. (Ha'aretz, Sept. 30)

NEW VIDEO OF GILAD SHALIT EXPECTED FRIDAY -- (Jerusalem) Kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit is alive, according to a newly-recorded videotape that will, supposedly, be provided to Israel by Hamas in return for Israel's release of 20 Palestinian female prisoners. The videotape, already turned over to German mediators, will be given to Israel on Friday, when the prisoners are due to be set free. Shalit, in captivity for more than three years, was abducted at age 19 by Islamic terrorists. (Washington Post, Sept. 30)

"NEVER FORGET" -- (New Orleans) The USS New York, the fifth ship in the San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock, designed to deliver a fully-equipped battalion of 700 Marines, and forged from over seven tons of steel recovered from Ground Zero, is to be christened on November 7, 2009. The ship is emblazoned with the motto: "Strength forged through sacrifice. Never Forget." Following the Sept. 11, 2001 attack that brought down the Twin Towers, NY Governor George Pataki requested his state's victims be honoured with a military vessel to fight the war on terror. ( USSNewYork.com, Sept. 30. To see the ship, click on the link.)