NEW YORK – International human rights organization The Simon Wiesenthal Center
announced on Thursday its list of the top 10 anti-Semites and haters of
Israel.
Those dominating the annual list were mostly from Europe and the
Middle East. The list reflected right-wing, left-wing and Islamist loathing of
Jews and Israel.
The rise of a Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt
catapulted two religious figures into the No. 1 spot: Muhammad Badie and Futouh
Abd al- Nabi Mansour.
In the Brotherhood’s moral guide, Badie states that
“the Jews have dominated the land, spread corruption on earth, spilled the blood
of believers and in their actions profaned holy places.
Zionists only
understand the language of force and will not relent without duress. This will
happen only through holy Jihad.”
Mansour, an Egyptian cleric who heads
the religious endowment for the Matrouh governate, said in October, according to
a transcription from the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), “Oh
Allah, destroy the Jews and their supporters – Oh Allah, disperse them and rend
them asunder, Oh Allah, demonstrate your might and greatness upon
them.”
At a nationally televised service at el- Tenaim Mosque, Egyptian
President Mohamed Morsi was shown fervently answering, “Amin” (Amen) to
Mansour’s prayers.
The Wiesenthal Center, which is named after Austrian
Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal, is considered a leading authority on
anti-Semitism.
The group placed Iran’s regime in its second spot. Iranian
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was cited for his July remarks that “it has now
been some 400 years that a horrendous Zionist clan has been ruling the major
world affairs.
And behind the scenes of the major power circles, in
political, media, monetary and banking organizations in the world, they have
been the decision-makers, to an extent that [in] a big power with a huge economy
and over 300 million population, the presidential election hopefuls must go kiss
the feet of the Zionists to ensure their victory in the elections.”
The
list also included Maj.-Gen. Hassan Firouzabadi, head of Iran’s armed forces,
who said in August, “The Iranian nation is standing for its cause, [which] is
the full annihilation of Israel.”
Iran’s First Vice President Mohamed
Rahimi made the list as well, for saying that the Talmud “teaches [the Jews] how
to destroy non-Jews so as to protect an embryo in the womb of a Jewish
mother.”
As “evidence” of Jewish control of international illegal drug
trade, the first vice president alleged that there wasn’t “a single addict among
the Zionists.”
The German Spiegel magazine online columnist Jakob
Augstein, who owns the left-wing weekly Freitag, joined the list of anti-Semites
at spot No. 9. The Wiesenthal Center listed him under the caption “Influential
German media personality’s bigotry,” and cited a series of quotes, including,
“With backing from the US, where the president must secure the support of Jewish
lobby groups, and in Germany, where coping with history, in the meantime, has a
military component, the Netanyahu government keeps the world on a leash with an
ever-swelling war chant.”
Another quote from Augstein declared that
“Israel’s nuclear power is a danger to the already fragile peace of the
world. This statement has triggered an outcry. Because it’s true.
And because it was made by a German, Günter Grass, author and Nobel Prize
winner. That is the key point. One must, therefore, thank him for taking it upon
himself to speak for us all.”
The columnist also trashed ultra- Orthodox
Jews in Israel, writing, “But the Jews also have their fundamentalists, the
ultra-Orthodox haredim. They are not a small splinter group. They make up 10% of
the Israeli population. They are cut from the same cloth as their Islamic
fundamentalist opponents. They follow the law of revenge.”
In
September, author and journalist Henryk Broder, one of Germany’s main experts on
modern anti-Semitism, termed Augstein “a pure anti-Semite...who only
missed the opportunity to make his career with the Gestapo because he was born
after the war. He certainly would have had what it takes.”
The founder of
the pro-fascist Greek party Golden Dawn made the list at No.
6. Nikolaos
Michaloliakos gave a Nazi salute in the Athens City Council, and this past May,
he told an interviewer that six million did not die in the
Holocaust.
Calling the figure an exaggeration, he said that “there were
no ovens. This is a lie... there were no gas chambers,
either.”
Hungary’s radical right-wing Jobbik Party earned the No. 7 spot,
as Jobbik politician Marton Gyongyosi criticized his country’s foreign ministry
for supporting Israel and raised the specter of dual loyalty by calling for
background checks on Hungarian Jewish citizens.
“I think now is the time
to assess how many people there are of Jewish origin here, and especially in the
Hungarian parliament who represent a certain national security risk of Hungary,”
he said.
The Wiesenthal Center also cited Oleg Tyagnibok (No. 5) from the
fascist Ukranian Svoboda party. He urged purges of the approximately 400,000
Jews and other minorities living in the Ukraine and has demanded that the
country be liberated from the “Muscovite Jewish Mafia.”
Ukrainian MP Igor
Miroshnichenko was cited for anti-Jewish remarks as well: He called
Ukrainian-born American actress Mila Kunis a “zhydovka” (dirty
Jewess).
The center designated European soccer (No. 4) as a forum for the
outbreak of Jew-hatred, writing, “The most serious situation has been a
resurgence of anti- Semitic chanting toward one particular team, Tottenham
Hotspur, which is based in a traditionally Jewish section of London. In a recent
match against rival West Ham United, sections of its fans chanted, ‘Adolf
Hitler’s coming for you’ and ‘You’re getting gassed in the morning’ and [made]
hissing noises like the sound of a gas chamber.”
Brazilian cartoonist
Carlos Latuff was listed as No. 3 for “slandering Prime Minister [Binyamin]
Netanyahu for doing what every world leader would do against the onslaught of
rocket attacks targeting innocent civilians” from the Gaza
Strip.
Norway’s Trond Ali Linstad earned the No. 8 spot. His website
warns readers to “beware the Jews” and the “influence they have in newspaper, in
other media, and in many political organs.”
Linstad depicts violence
against Israel as a “great success” and supports use of the slogan “Kharibat
Khybarj,” a jihadist term for terrorism against Jews. He also claims that “every
president in the US must adapt to the Jewish lobby,” which he says undermines US
policy.
This year, King Harald V nominated Linstad for the Royal Service
Medal, which awards work in the public sector, arts and sciences.
The
only American to make the list, at spot No. 10, was Louis Farrakhan, the head of
the African-American Nation of Islam. He said in October that “Jews control the
media. They said it themselves....In Washington right next to the
Holocaust museum is the Federal Reserve where they print the money. Is that an
accident?” Farrakhan added, “Did you know the Koran says that Jews are the most
violent of people? I didn’t write it, but I’m living to see it.”