MOHAMED ABD EL GHANY/REUTERS/Newscom
It may be two week since Jan. 1, but the mouthpieces that topped the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s list of top 10 anti-Semites of 2012 are still spewing hatred.
The list, which was put out for the third year this past Dec. 27, provides a snapshot of anti-Semitism in the mainstream of government, organizations, media and culture, explained Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the center’s associate dean.
Rabbi Cooper said a team of more than 400,000 researchers cull the list in a multi-lingual, international effort. Why?
“Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said that anti-Semitism has the ability to morph. Just when you think you have it beaten, it shows up in another form and different venues,” said Rabbi Cooper. “Exposing the anti-Semitism is part of a larger strategy to motivate those in position of power to do something about it. … We will be at this for a long time to come.”
So, without further ado, let’s look at the list of that which unifies both far right and far left better than anything else: Jew hating.
Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood tops the list with a quote from Mohammed Badie, the Muslim Brotherhood’s sup-reme guide. During a recent talk, he spewed the notion that the “The Jews … have spread corruption on earth.” He recommended “holy Jihad” in order to annihilate them. His colleague, Futouh Abd Al-Nabi Mansour, during an October sermon, called on the Muslim god to “destroy the Jews and their supporters.”
Mansour was heard chanting, “Oh Allah, disperse [the Jews] and rend them asunder. Oh Allah, demonstrate your might and greatness upon them.”
Interestingly, according to the Middle East Media Research Institute, Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi watched that very sermon and was heard uttering “Amin” (amen) to every fiery statement.
“Egypt is asking the U.S., EU and the World Bank for $12 billion in aid,” noted Rabbi Cooper. “We have to try to link aid to Morsi to the basic issue of protecting religious minorities and not allowing government modalities to become mouthpieces of hate.”
Next on the list: the Iranian Regime and its repeated calls for “the full annihilation of Israel.” (See: The 21st-Century Iranian Jew,” page 28.)
No. 3: Brazilian cartoonist Carlos Latuff. Many people believe political cartoons have a greater negative stereotype upon Jews than lengthy diatribes. During Operation Pillar of Defense, this cartoonist slandered the Jewish state in a piece depicting Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu ringing a Gaza baby out for money instead of doing what any world leader would have done under the circumstances — protected his people from Hamas rocket fire.
At No. 4, was an unlikely culprit. Anti-Semitic European soccer fans made the list for rhetoric at a game against Tottenham Hotspur, based in a traditional Jewish section of London. West Ham United fans during a game chanted, “Adolf Hitler’s coming for you” and “You’re getting gassed in the morning.” The message even came with hissing noises meant to replicate the sound of a gas chamber.
In the middle, at No. 5, are Ukraine’s anti-Semitic authorities, one that called actress Mila Kunis a “dirty Jewess.”
Next on the list at No. 6 was Greece’s Golden Dawn party leader and Holocaust denier of the first
degree, Nikolaos Michaloliakos. He recently told an interviewer that six million Jews were not murdered in the Shoah. He denied there were gas chambers or ovens in the Nazi camps and has a penchant for giving the Nazi salute.
A close No. 7 went to the far right Hungarian Jobbik party. The party’s Martin Gyongyosi called on the Hungarian parliament to “assess how many people there are of Jewish origin” in Hungary “who represent a certain national security risk” to the country.
Norway’s Trond Ali Linstadt, a convert to Islam, was listed at number eight. He warns web readers to “beware of the Jews” and the “influence they have in newspaper, in other media, and in many political organs.”
No. 9 is a new voice and an influential German media personality, Jakob Augstein. The owner and editor of
Der Freitag Weekly, Augstein accused Netanyahu of exploiting the “Jewish lobby” in the United States and Germany’s Nazi past to “keep the world on a leash.” While he admitted that Israel is “threatened by Islamic fundamentalists in its neighborhood,” it equated the “ultra-Orthodox Hareidim” as “cut from the same cloth” as those fundamentalist opponents.
Last on the list was none other than long-term favorite Louis Farrakhan. In October, he came out with “In Washington, right next to the Holocaust museum, is the Federal Reserve, where they print the money.” He asks, “Is that an accident?”
Rabbi Cooper said there were many others that could have made the 2012 list. The Wiesenthal center, he said, gave serious consideration to a number of anti-Semites in France, “but the Hollande government has deported some and is actively involved in countering the threats.” He said there were also other figures, including a leading Mufti in Lebanon, which could have been number 11.
Rabbi Cooper called on the people — and the people’s media — to take action.
He said, “The media has a large role in calling out the hate, including anti-Semitism, when it threatens to infect the mainstream society.”
