Wiesenthal ranks top 10 anti-Semites, Israel-haters

Muslim Brotherhood’s rise in Egypt catapults two religious figures into No. 1 spot on Simon Wiesenthal Center's year-end list.

By BENJAMIN WEINTHAL, JERUSALEM POST CORRESPONDENT
Defaced placard of Jobbik Party leader Gyongyosi 370 (photo credit: REUTERS)
Defaced placard of Jobbik Party leader Gyongyosi 370
(photo credit: REUTERS)
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.”