Tuesday, 29 June 2010

Wilders: "America, The Last Man Standing"

Geert Wilders is a well-known member of the Dutch Parliament and leader of a political party, the Party In Freedom. Wilders is often characterized by the press as a right winger and even as an extremist or extreme right wing leader, and has been compared to other major right wing leaders such as Le Pen in France and Jorg Haider of Austria. But there are also many liberal leaders who regard Geert Wilders as a very sane and grounded political leader who is legitimately concerned with the overpowering of western democracies by a growing Islamic population and a deepening radicalization of Islamic thought and its considerable adoptions of violence. -Ed.

The following are excerpts from a talk by Wilders at the Four Seasons Hotel in New York on January 21, 2010:

All is not well in the old world. There is a tremendous danger looming, and it is very difficult to be optimistic. We might be in the final stages of the Islamization of Europe. This not only is a clear and present danger to the future of Europe itself, it is a threat to America and the sheer survival of the West. The United States is the last bastion of Western civilization, facing an Islamic Europe.

Mohammed the prophet is an example to all Muslims and cannot be criticized. Now, if Mohammed had been a man of peace, let us say like Ghandi and Mother Theresa wrapped in one, there would be no problem. But Mohammed was a warlord, a mass murderer a pedophile, and had several marriages - at the same time. Islamic tradition tell us how he fought in battles, how he had his enemies murdered and even had prisoners of war executed. Mohammed himself slaughtered the Jewish tribe of Banu Qurayza. If it is good for Islam, it is good. If it is bad for Islam, it is bad.

Let no one fool you about Islam being a religion. In its essence Islam is a political ideology. It is a system that lays down detailed rules for society and the life of every person. Islam wants to dictate every aspect of life. Islam means 'submission.' Islam is not compatible with freedom and democracy, because what is strives for is sharia. If you want to compare Islam to anything, compare it to communism or national-socialism, these are totalitarian ideologies...

A total of fifty-four million Muslims now live in Europe. San Diego University recently calculated that a staggering 25 percent of the population in Europe will be Muslim just 12 years from now. Bernhard Lewis has predicted a Muslim majority by the end of this century.

Now these are just numbers. And the number would not be threatening if the Muslim immigrants had a strong desire to assimilate. But there are few signs of that. The Pew Research Centre reported that half of French Muslims see their loyalty to Islam as greater than their loyalty to France . One-third of French Muslims do not object to suicide attacks. The British Centre for Social Cohesion reported that one-third of British Muslim students are in favour of a worldwide caliphate. Muslims demand what they call ‘respect’. And this is how we give them respect. We have Muslim official state holidays.

The Christian-Democratic attorney general is willing to accept sharia in the Netherlands if there is a Muslim majority. We have cabinet members with passports from Morocco and Turkey .

Muslim demands are supported by unlawful behaviour, ranging from petty crimes and random violence, for example against ambulance workers and bus drivers, to small-scale riots. Paris has seen its uprising in the low-income suburbs, the banlieus. I call the perpetrators ‘settlers’. Because that is what they are. They do not come to integrate into our societies; they come to integrate our society into their Dar-al-Islam. Therefore, they are settlers.

Much of this street violence I mentioned is directed exclusively against non-Muslims, forcing many native people to leave their neighbourhoods, their cities, their countries. Moreover, Muslims are now a swing vote not to be ignored...

Now you know why Winston Churchill called Islam ‘the most retrograde force in the world’, and why he compared Mein Kampf to the Quran. The public has wholeheartedly accepted the Palestinian narrative, and sees Israel as the aggressor...

The war against Israel is not a war against Israel . It is a war against the West. It is jihad. Israel is simply receiving the blows that are meant for all of us. If there would have been no Israel , Islamic imperialism would have found other venues to release its energy and its desire for conquest. Thanks to Israeli parents who send their children to the army and lay awake at night, parents in Europe and America can sleep well and dream, unaware of the dangers looming.

Many in Europe argue in favour of abandoning Israel in order to address the grievances of our Muslim minorities. But if Israel were, God forbid, to go down, it would not bring any solace to the West. It would not mean our Muslim minorities would all of a sudden change their behaviour, and accept our values. On the contrary, the end of Israel would give enormous encouragement to the forces of Islam. They would, and rightly so, see the demise of Israel as proof that the West is weak, and doomed. The end of Israel would not mean the end of our problems with Islam, but only the beginning. It would mean the start of the final battle for world domination. If they can get Israel , they can get everything. So-called journalists volunteer to label any and all critics of Islamization as a ‘right-wing extremists’ or ‘racists’. In my country, the Netherlands , 60 percent of the population now sees the mass immigration of Muslims as the number one policy mistake since World War II. And another 60 percent sees Islam as the biggest threat. Yet there is a greater danger than terrorist attacks, the scenario of America as the last man standing. The lights may go out in Europe faster than you can imagine. An Islamic Europe means a Europe without freedom and democracy, an economic wasteland, an intellectual nightmare, and a loss of military might for America – as its allies will turn into enemies, enemies with atomic bombs. With an Islamic Europe, it would be up to America alone to preserve the heritage of Rome, Athens and Jerusalem...

Liberty is the most precious of gifts. My generation never had to fight for this freedom, it was offered to us on a silver platter, by people who fought for it with their lives. All throughout Europe, American cemeteries remind us of the young boys who never made it home, and whose memory we cherish. My generation does not own this freedom; we are merely its custodians. We can only hand over this hard won liberty to Europe‘s children in the same state in which it was offered to us. We cannot strike a deal with mullahs and imams. Future generations would never forgive us. We cannot squander our liberties. We simply do not have the right to do so. We have to take the necessary action now to stop this Islamic stupidity from destroying the free world, that we know.

Sources:
Europe News 21 (January 2010). http://europenews.dk/en/node/29245

Israpundit (March 2, 2010). Wilders: "America, The Last Man Standing" http://www.israpundit.com/2008/?p=21077
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Sunday, 27 June 2010

Pioneering Spanish Judge Garzon Comes Under Serious Legal Fire because He Intended to Try Franco-era Crimes



Judge Baltasar Garzon


On May 14, 2010 the Spanish General Council of the Judiciary suspended Judge Baltasar Garzon from his functions following his indictment on charges of abuse of authority.

Writing in the New York Times and International Herald Tribune, Guénaël Mettraux,who is an attorney who appears before International Tribunals, said of Garzon: "Garzon had become a living symbol of international justice as he pursued the likes of Augusto Pinochet and Osama bin Laden in the name of universal principles of human dignity, human rights and the international fight against impunity.

The reaction to Garzon's latest investigative efforts and the Brazilian Supreme Court's recent upholding of a law of amnesty that applies to the crimes of Brazil's military dictatorship are powerful reminders that states can still decide what to do with their past, even when that past involves mass atrocities."

For years Baltasar Garzon has been Spain's most controversial crusader, a judge on a mission to fight gross abuse of power He has used his courtroom in Madrid to investigate allegations of torture at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to indict Osama bin Laden and, most famously, to go after former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet.

Now Judge Garzon, 54, is involved in yet another trial involving an alleged abuse of power, but is about his own use of power as a judge.

In February 2010, a Supreme Court investigating magistrate ruled that Judge Garzon had ignored the 1977 amnesty by launching an investigation into atrocities committed during the four-decade rule of Gen Franco. Tens of thousands of people disappeared during Spain's Civil War and under the Franco regime that followed.


Spanish citizens protesting Garzon's suspension. The photograph held by a demonstrator is obviously a member of his family - perhaps his parents - who were killed by Franco.

The Spanish legal system gives national criminal magistrates such as Garzon wide latitude not just to adjudicate cases but to initiate investigations if they see fit. Garzon has used that platform to embrace the concept of "universal jurisdiction," which holds that certain crimes against humanity; such as torture and genocide, are not limited by geography when it comes to pressing charges in a court of law.

The case follows a complaint by far-right groups that the probe ignored an amnesty law passed in 1977, two years after Franco's death, for crimes committed under Franco's rule.

According to one report, Garzon's fate now lies in the hands of a court led by a justice who is one of his critics. If Garzon is found guilty and receives the customary sentence of 20 years' suspension from the bench, his judicial career would in effect be over. One of his lawyers worries that it already is. In May 2010, the high court decided that there was enough evidence for the case to be brought to trial and ordered Garzon suspended in the interim. Gonzalo Martinez-Fresneda, an attorney for Garzon, said even the temporary suspension would have a "devastating symbolic effect."

According to the Los Angeles Times, thousands of supporters have mounted protests on his behalf, including such well-known figures as filmmaker Pedro Almodovar.

Judge Baltasar Garzon has asked to take a leave of absence to work for the International Criminal Court (ICC). Judicial sources at Spain's National Court say Mr. Garzon wants to work as an advisor for the ICC for seven months.

Spanish judicial sources say that Mr. Garzon has received a job offer by the ICC chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo. They say Spain's judicial oversight board has to decide whether to grant Mr. Garzon the leave of absence. Mr. Garzon has not publicly commented on the issue.

In his first newspaper interview in a year, Garzon said, "The principle of universal jurisdiction has in fact germinated and is a conquest that cannot be lost and will not be lost. However, as always happens with international justice, it's about two steps forward, then one step back, then one forward and then two back - so we advance with a lot of difficulties. Why? Because there are a lot of interests at play - judicial as well as political and diplomatic."

Sources:
Chu, Henry (May 23, 2010). Crusading Spain judge Garzon himself a defendant. Los Angeles Times. http://articles.latimes.com/2010/may/23/world/la-fg-spain-judge-20100523

UN group voices 'concern' at Spanish judge Garzon's suspension. http://www.expatica.com/es/news/spanish-news/un-group-voices-concern--at-spanish-judge-garzon-s-suspension_70834.html#

Ahrens, Lula (May 13, 2010). Judge Garzon's verdict expected on Friday. Radio Nederland Wereldomroep. http://www.rnw.nl/international-justice/article/judge-garz%C3%B3ns-verdict-expected-friday

BBC News (May 11, 2010). Spain judge Garzon 'seeks leave.' http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8675548.stm

Minder, Raphael (June 9, 2010). Spanish judge says fight for rights will outlast trial. International Herald Tribune.

Mettrauz, Guénaël (June 1, 2010). International justice - for others. International Herald Tribune.

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Saturday, 26 June 2010

Spanish Court Indicts Chinese Leaders for Persecution of Falun Gong


The Federal court of Spain has indicted senior government officials of the Chinese government, among them the former chairman of the Communist Party – Jiang Zamin, for tortures and genocide of people who practice Falun Gong in China. If the officials indicted do not respond, it is expected that the court will rule on their extradition to Spain and possibly sentences of up to 20 years in jail.

The presiding judge, Judge Ismael Moreno, devoted two years to the investigation, in accordance with a ruling of the constitutional court in 2006 that ordered Spanish courts to accept the case on the basis of the legal principal of universal jurisdiction. This legal principal makes it possible for courts in any locale to undertake proceedings against people who have committed genocide and crimes against humanity in other locations in the world.

Evidence that was brought before the judge in the course of a two-year investigation included testimony written by 15 practioners of Falon Gong and direct verbal testimonies from 7 of them. In arriving at his decision, Judge Moreno also relied on reports from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Human Rights Legal Fund and the UN Human Rights Committee.

Attorney Carlos Iglesias of the Human Rights Legal Fund (HRLF) said “The historic decision of the Spanish judge means that the leaders of Communist China who are responsible for the cruel crimes are now one step closer to being brought to justice. When a person commits genocide or torture, this is a crime against the entire international community and not only against Chinese citizens.” A Falon Gong newspaper notes that this is the first time that a court recognizes the persecution of FG believers in accordance with the legal definition of genocide.

Iglesias also said “the perpetrators of crimes of genocide and torture will actually stand before two courts. First they will stand before a court of law, and secondly, they will be judged by history for committing the most horrible crimes of all, persecution of millions of people whose only purpose was to improve their moral and spiritual beings in accordance with universal ethical principles.” He also expressed a hope other countries would also take action. "This decision of the Spanish judge, I sincerely think will open the door for other countries around the world to also start to investigate these crimes - and for justice to be served in the genocide that the Chinese Communist Party is committing against Falun Gong."

Sources:
Epoch Times - Israeli edition (November 26-December 2, 2009). An unprecendented court ruling against senior Chinese officials for crimes of genocide: Standing trial before history. Translated from Hebrew.

Friends of Falun Gong Newsletter. (November 2009) Taiwan: Spanish court indicts former chinese leaders, lawyer calls for the extradition of the five defendants. http://www.fofg-europe.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=156&Itemid=36

International Federation for Justice in China (Retrieved May 20, 2010). Jiang Zemin indicted in Spain for genocide and torture of Falun Gong practitioners, http://www.ifjc.org/content/view/1929/30/lang,en/
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Friday, 25 June 2010

Tel Aviv University Falun Gong Exhibition Closes Down Under Pressure from the Chinese Government, but a Tel Aviv Court Overrules the Closure



A Tel Aviv District Court judge ruled that Tel Aviv University had "violated freedom of expression and succumbed to pressure from the Chinese Embassy" when it took down a student exhibition last year the focused on the oppression of the Falun Gong spiritual movement at the hands of the Communist Chinese government.

The exhibition featured 25 paintings by 17 artists from around the world. It depicted Falun Gong spiritual practices and the torture and executions its members have been subjected to in recent years.

The Jerusalem Post reported that the exhibition was originally approved by the head of the Asian Studies department at TAU, Prof.Yoav Ariel, along with the university's administration, which allotted nearly two weeks in March 2008 for the presenters to show the paintings inside the central on-campus library. But after just two days, organizers were told that the exhibition had to be removed. After initially protesting the move, they were given an additional three days to hold the exhibition, but were then told it had to come down. The two students who had organized the exhibition claimed that the decision to shut down the exhibition had been made after TAU was pressured by the Chinese Embassy in Tel Aviv and then went to court. "Removing the exhibition is a serious, unacceptable and unabashed infringement by university authorities on the plaintiff's freedom of expression and the students' and the public's right to know," they wrote.

The Jerusalem Post reported further that after more than a year of legal battles, Judge Amiram Benyamini ruled that TAU had "succumbed to pressure from the Chinese Embassy, which funds various activities at the university, and took down the exhibit, violating [the students] freedom of expression." Benyamini also stipulated as part of his ruling that the exhibition be given another week to be shown, and ordered TAU to pay some NIS 45,000 (about $11,500) for the students' court costs. TAU declined to comment on the matter and a spokesman at the Chinese Embassy refused to comment.

Haaretz also reported that the Student Union and Professor Ariel had the exhibit removed because of a request by the Chinese Embassy, and that he said he removed the exhibition because of fears that association with Falun Gong might negatively affect how Judaism is received in China, and also that Tel Aviv University has to take into consideration its ties with Chinese universities including student exchanges. Haaretz also reported that TAU spokeswoman Orly Frumer had responded that the exhibition was mounted with Student Union approval, and she did not know why it was taken down.

Falun Gong worldwide marks an annual Falun Dafa event on the 13th of May. This event marks the day that the movement became established in 1992 as well as the birthday of the teacher of the art, Li Hong Jei. The event is celebrated in more than 100 countries around the world by Falun Gong believers in the principles of "Truth, Compassion and Tolerance."

The Chinese government has outlawed Falun Gong, which became an overwhelmingly popular exercise movement in which hundreds of thousands participated in early mornings in China. There have been convincing reports of massive torture, torture to death, outright murder, and many imprisonments of Falun Gong adherents in China.

A Falun Gong newspaper also reports that the Chinese are known to have removed internal organs from prisoners for sale in the human organ market for transplants.

Sources:
Epoch Times, Israeli edition (May 18-26, 2010). Weekly issue #164. (Translated from Hebrew)

Edelman, Ofra (March 11, 2008). TAU exhibit on Falun Gong meditation shuttered over Chinese pressure, students charge. Haaretz.com. http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/tau-exhibit-on-falun-gong-meditation-shuttered-over-chinese-pressure-students-charge-1.241033

JPost.com (Jan 10, 2009). Court backs students in TAU row over Falun Gong exhibit the university removed. http://www.jpost.com/Home/Article.aspx?id=156344
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Thursday, 24 June 2010

The Laws Banning Holocaust Denial



Jacqueline Lechtholz-Zey

I. INTRODUCTION
A survey of the sixteen countries that have enacted laws that either directly criminalize Holocaust denial or can be used to prosecute individuals who deny the Holocaust: Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, and Switzerland.

II. DISCUSSION
A. Laws that explicitly ban Holocaust denial
Austria
The Verbotsgesetz 1945 (The Prohibition Act 1945) is an Austrian constitutional law that provided the legal framework for denazification and aimed to suppress any potential of revival of Nazism in Austria. Yet the law did not clearly state that Holocaust denial was a Nazi activity, although the Austrian courts interpreted the act in this way. Because it was becoming more and more difficult to apply the law to neo-Nazi endeavors, particularly when “revisionism” became part and parcel of the neo-Nazi message, the law was finally amended in February of 1992. Among the changes to the law was a section that explicitly bans the denial or gross minimization of Nazi genocide or other Nazi crimes against humanity, thus making it easier to address Nazi propaganda and historical “revisionism.” The text of this law is as follows:
National Socialism Prohibition Law (1945, Amendments of 1992)
§3g. He who operates in a manner characterized other than that in § § 3a – 3f will be punished (revitalizing of the NSDAP or identification with), with imprisonment from one to up to ten years, and in cases of particularly dangerous suspects or activity, be punished with up to twenty years imprisonment.

§3h. As an amendment to § 3 g., whoever denies, grossly plays down, approves or tries to excuse the National Socialist genocide or other National Socialist crimes against humanity in a print publication, in broadcast or other media.

Belgium
The Holocaust denial law in Belgium was passed on March 23, 1995. This law makes it a crime to deny, grossly minimize, attempt to justify, or approve of the genocide committed by the Nazis during WWII. The offense is punishable by imprisonment of up to one year and a fine of up to 124 EUR, and prosecution is carried out by the Belgian Centre for Equal Opportunities.

Negationism Law (1995, Amendments of 1999)
Art. 1 Whoever, in the circumstances given in article 444 of the Penal Code denies, grossly minimizes, attempts to justify, or approves the genocide committed by the German National Socialist Regime during the Second World War shall be punished by a prison sentence of eight days to one year, and by a fine of twenty six francs to five thousand francs. For the application of the previous paragraph, the term genocide is meant in the sense of article 2 of the International Treaty of 9 December 1948 on preventing and combating genocide. In the event of repetitions, the guilty party may in addition have his civic rights suspended in accordance with article 33 of the Penal Code.

Art.2 In the event of a conviction on account of a violation under this Act, it may be ordered that the judgment, in its entity or an excerpt of it, is published in one of more newspapers, and is displayed, to the charge of the guilty party.

Art.3. Chapter VII of the First Book of the Penal Code and Article 85 of the same Code are also applicable to this Act.

Art. 4. The Centre for Equal Opportunities and Opposition to Racism, as well as any association that at the time of the facts had a legal personality for at least five years, and which, on the grounds of its statutes, has the objective of defending moral interests and the honor of the resistance or the deported, may act in law in all legal disputes arising from the application of this Act.

Czech Republic
The Czech Republic has made denial of the Holocaust as well as negationism of communist atrocities illegal.
Law Against Support and Dissemination of Movements Oppressing Human Rights and Freedoms (2001)
§ 260 (1) The person who supports or spreads movements oppressing human rights and freedoms or declares national, race, religious or class hatred or hatred against other group of persons will be punished by prison from 1 to 5 years. (2) The person will be imprisoned from 3 to 8 years if: a) he/she commits the crime mentioned in paragraph (1) in print, film, radio, television or other similarly effective manner, b) he/she commits the crime as a member of an organized group c) he/she commits the crime in a state of national emergency or state of war

§ 261 The person who publicly declares sympathies with such a movement mentioned in § 260, will be punished by prison from 6 months to 3 years.

§ 261a The person who publicly denies, puts in doubt, approves or tries to justify Nazi or communist genocide or other crimes of Nazis or communists will be punished by prison of 6 months to 3 years.
France
The Gayssot Act was passed in France on July 13, 1990. The Act criminalizes questioning the existence of crimes of humanity as defined in the Charter of the International Military Tribunal, which was used at Nuremberg in 1945 to 1946 to convict Nazi leaders. Robert Faurisson, an infamous Holocaust denier, challenged the Act but the Human Rights Commission upheld it as a necessary means to counter possible antisemitism.
Law No. 90-615 to repress acts of racism, anti-Semitism and xenophobia (1990)
Art 9. – As an amendment to Article 24 of the law of July 29, 1881 on the freedom of the press, article 24 (a) is as follows written: Art. 24 (a). - those who have disputed the existence of one or more crimes against humanity such as they are defined by Article 6 of the statute of the international tribunal military annexed in the agreement of London of August 8, 1945 and which were a carried out either by the members of an organization declared criminal pursuant to Article 9 of the aforementioned statute, or by a person found guilty such crimes by a French or international jurisdiction shall be punished by one month to one years imprisonment or a fine.

Art 13. - It is inserted, after article 48-1 of the law of July 29, 1881 on the freedom of the press, article 48-2 thus written: Art. 48-2. - publication or publicly expressed opinion encouraging those to whom it is addressed to pass a favorable moral judgment on one or more crimes against humanity and tending to justify these crimes (including collaboration) or vindicate their perpetrators shall be punished by one to five years imprisonment or a fine.
Germany
Volksverhetzung (“incitement of the people”) is a concept under German criminal law that prohibits the incitement of hatred against a particular group of people.
§130 Public Incitement (1985, Revised 1992, 2002, 2005)
(1) Whoever, in a manner that is capable of disturbing the public peace:

1.incites hatred against segments of the population or calls for violent or arbitrary measures against them; or
2. assaults the human dignity of others by insulting, maliciously maligning, or defaming segments of the population,
shall be punished with imprisonment from three months to five years.

(3) Whoever publicly or in a meeting approves of, denies or belittles an act committed under the rule of National Socialism of the type indicated in Section 6 subsection (1) of the Code of Crimes against International Law, in a manner capable of disturbing the public peace shall be punished with imprisonment for not more than five years or a fine.

(4) Whoever publicly or in a meeting disturbs the public peace in a manner that assaults the human dignity of the victims by approving of, denying or rendering harmless the violent and arbitrary National Socialist rule shall be punished with imprisonment for not more than three years or a fine.
Section 3 above refers to the following crimes:
§ 6 Genocide
(1) Whoever with the intent of destroying as such, in whole or in part, a national, racial, religious or ethnic group:
1. kills a member of the group,
2. causes serious bodily or mental harm to a member of the group, especially of the kind referred to in section 226 of the Criminal Code,
3. inflicts on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction in whole or in part,
4. imposes measures intended to prevent births within the group,
5. forcibly transfers a child of the group to another group,
shall be punished with imprisonment for life.

Hungary
In 1992, The Hungarian Constitutional Court struck down an existing law against Holocaust denial on the grounds that criminalizing it was incompatible with the right to free speech. However, on February 22, 2010, the Hungarian Parliament again passed legislation that criminalizes the minimization or denial of the Holocaust, and President Laszlo Solyom signed the bill into law on March 3, 2010. According to a spokesperson, the current President does not believe that this legislation contravenes the Hungarian constitutional right to free speech.

The reform was passed with a 197-1 vote, with 142 abstentions. The new law will come into effect in early April. The text reads:
Those who publicly hurt the dignity of a victim of the Holocaust by denying or questioning the Holocaust itself, or claim it insignificant, infringe the law and can be punished by prison sentence of up to three years.

Israel
The Knesset (the Supreme Court in Israel) passed a law to criminalize the denial of the Holocaust on July 8, 1986.
Denial of Holocaust (Prohibition) Law, 5746-1986
Definitions
1. In this Law, "crime against the Jewish people" and "crime against humanity" have the same respective meanings as in the "Nazis and Nazi Collaborators Law, 5710-1950.

Prohibition of Denial of Holocaust
2. A person who, in writing or by word of mouth, publishes any statement denying or diminishing the proportions of acts committed in the period of the Nazi regime, which are crimes against the Jewish people or crimes against humanity, with intent to defend the perpetrators of those acts or to express sympathy or identification with them, shall be liable to imprisonment for a term of five years.

Prohibition of publication of expression for sympathy for Nazi crimes
3. A person who, in writing or by word of mouth, publishes any statement expressing praise or sympathy for or identification with acts done in the period of the Nazi regime, which are crimes against the Jewish people or crimes against humanity, shall be liable to imprisonment for a term of five years.

Permitted publication
4. The publication of a correct and fair report of a publication prohibited by this Law shall not be regarded as an offence thereunder so long as it is not made with intent to express sympathy or identification with the perpetrators of crimes against the Jewish people or against humanity.

Filing of charge
5. An indictment for offences under this Law shall only be filed by or with the consent of the Attorney-General.

Luxembourg
Article 457-3 of the Criminal Code, Act of 19 July 1997 outlaws Holocaust denial in addition to the denial of other genocides. Punishment for violating this Act is imprisonment up to 6 months and/or a fine. The offense of “negationism and revisionism” applies to
...anyone who has contested, minimized, justified or denied the existence of war crimes or crimes against humanity as defined in the statutes of the International Military Tribunal of 8 August 1945 or the existence of a genocide as defined by the Act of 8 August 1985. A complaint must be lodged by the person against whom the offence was committed (victim or association) in order for proceedings to be brought, Article 450 of the Criminal Code, Act of 19 July 1997.

Poland
Poland criminalizes both Holocaust denial and the denial of crimes perpetrated by communists.
Act of 18 December 1998 on the Institute of National Remembrance - Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation

Article 55
He who publicly and contrary to facts contradicts the crimes mentioned in Article 1, clause 1 shall be subject to a fine or a penalty of deprivation of liberty of up to three years. The judgment shall be made publicly known.

Article 1
This Act shall govern:
1. the registration, collection, access, management and use of the documents of the organs of state security created and collected between 22 July 1944 and 31 December 1989, and the documents of the organs of security of the Third Reich and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics concerning:
a) crimes perpetrated against persons of Polish nationality and Polish citizens of other ethnicity, nationalities in the period between 1 September 1939 and 31 December 1989:

- Nazi crimes,
- communist crimes,
- other crimes constituting crimes against peace, crimes against humanity or war crimes

b) other politically motivated repressive measures committed by functionaries of Polish prosecution bodies or the judiciary or persons acting upon their orders, and disclosed in the content of the rulings given pursuant to the Act of 23 February 1991 on the Acknowledgement as Null and Void Decisions Delivered on Persons Repressed for Activities for the Benefit of the Independent Polish State (Journal of Laws of 1993 No. 34, item 149, of 1995 No. 36, item 159, No. 28, item 143, and of 1998 No. 97, item 604),
2. the rules of procedure as regards the prosecution of crimes specified in point 1 letter a),
3. the protection of the personal data of grieved parties, and
4. the conduct of activities as regards public education.

Romania
Romania proposed an Emergency Ordinance on March 13, 2002 to prohibit Holocaust denial. The law was ratified on May 6, 2006, and also bans racist, fascist, xenophobic symbols, uniforms and gestures. Violations are punishable by up to five years in prison.
Emergency Ordinance No. 31 of March 13, 2002
Article 3. – (1) Establishing a fascist, racist or xenophobic organization is punishable by imprisonment from 5 to 15 years and the loss of certain rights.

Article 4. – (1) The dissemination, sale or manufacture of symbols either fascist, racist or xenophobic, and possession of such symbols is punished with imprisonment from 6 months to 5 years and the loss of certain rights.

Article 5. – Promoting the culture of persons guilty of committing a crime against peace and humanity or promoting fascist, racist or xenophobic ideology, through propaganda, committed by any means, in public, is punishable by imprisonment from 6 months to 5 years and the loss of certain rights.

Article 6. – Denial of the Holocaust in public, or to the effects thereof is punishable by imprisonment from 6 months to 5 years and the loss of certain rights.

B. Laws that prohibit genocide denial generally
Several countries do not ban Holocaust denial specifically but instead have passed legislation criminalizing the denial of any genocide, which clearly can be enforced against Holocaust deniers as well.

Liechtenstein
Liechtenstein’s criminal code prohibits the denial of genocide:
§ 283 Race discrimination
5. Whoever publicly denies, coarsely trivializes, or tries to justify genocide or other crimes against humanity via word, writing, pictures, electronically transmitted signs, gestures, violent acts or by other means shall be punished with imprisonment for up to two years.
Portugal

Article 240: Religious, racial, or sexual discrimination
2 - Whoever in a public meeting, in writing intended for dissemination, or by any means of media:
a) incites violence against an individual or group of individuals because of race, color, ethnic or national origin or religion, or

b) defames or slanders an individual or group of individuals because of race, color, ethnic or national origin or religion, particularly through the denial of war crimes or against peace and humanity;

with intent to encourage or incite to racial or religious discrimination, shall be punished with imprisonment from 6 months to 5 years.

Switzerland
The denial of genocide and other crimes against humanity is an imprisonable offense under Swiss law.
SR 311.0 Swiss Penal Code, Article 261 Racial Discrimination

Whoever publicly, by word, writing, image, gesture, acts of violence or any other manner, demeans or discriminates against an individual or a group of individuals because of their race, their ethnicity or their religion in a way which undermines human dignity, or on those bases, denies, coarsely minimizes or seeks to justify a genocide or other crimes against humanity ... shall be punished with up to three years imprisonment or a fine.
C. Rejections of laws criminalizing Holocaust denial
Because of the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech, Holocaust denial has not been criminalized in the United States. Freedom of expression is also a cornerstone of British society, therefore Holocaust denial has not been prohibited in the United Kingdom either. Italy approved a draft law that imposes jail terms for racially motivated crimes, but does not go so far as to prohibit Holocaust denial specifically, although this was Justice Minister Mastella’s initial aim. Italy has also rejected measures proposed by the European Union to impose EU-wide bans on Holocaust denial, on the basis of protecting freedom of speech. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, a Bosniak member of the Parliament proposed a draft law in 2007 to criminalize Holocaust denial and the denial of genocide and other crimes against humanity. However, Bosnian Serb MPs have been repeatedly opposed to such legislation. There is concern that such a law might be used as a weapon against their community. As one delegate explains, “[w]ar crimes are a sensitive issue in Bosnia and Herzegovina. I am not sure this law would actually lead to reconciliation and justice fulfillment.” He continues on to say that Bosnian Serbs “consider that [the law’s] adoption would cause disagreement and even animosity.”

Several countries formally banned Holocaust denial in the past but the denial has since been decriminalized. As discussed, the Hungarian Constitutional Court formerly struck down a law against Holocaust denial in 1992 on the grounds that doing so was incompatible with the right to free speech. Spain banned genocide denial in general until the Constitutional Court of Spain ruled that prohibiting denial was unconstitutional. Thus, as of November 7, 2007, Holocaust denial is legal, but justification of the Holocaust (or any other genocide, for that matter) is still an imprisonable offense.

Jacqueline Lechtholz-Zey graduated from the Early Entrance Program at California State University Los Angeles at age 19 in 2007. She earned her B.S. in Business Administration with an option in Business Arts-Prelegal. She also minored in Economics and Law and Society. In her year off before starting law school, she had the opportunity to travel to Israel. Her Birthright experience had a tremendous impact on her, and from then on she became even more dedicated to finding meaningful work and a way to preserve human life and dignity. Jackie began her legal studies at Loyola Law School, Los Angeles, in Fall of 2008, and in her second year she took Law and Genocide with Professors Michael Bazyler and Stan Goldman. In this course, she wrote her final paper on the propriety of Holocaust denial laws, a portion of which is published here. She is also Chief Articles Editor of the Entertainment Law Review at Loyola, and her article on extending copyright protection to fashion designs will be published in Vol. 30, Issue III.

Currently, Jackie is continuing her work in the field of Holocaust and genocide law by working for Professors Bazyler and Goldman as a research assistant. She is working on a book chapter about the kapo trials, as well as a piece on societal reactions to the Nuremberg trials. While very passionate about genocide prevention, Jackie is also a lover of art and has translated that interest into pursuing fashion law. Though vastly different fields of study, she hopes to find a way to reconcile these passions and ultimately make a meaningful contribution to society. She will graduate from Loyola Law School in May 2011.

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Wednesday, 23 June 2010

Can We Prevent Genocide by Preventing Incitement?



Article with Two Timelines: Rwanda Genocide Timeline and Darfur Genocide Timeline
Includes an Appendix of Excerpts from School Textbooks and Media of Hate Language and Incitement in the Middle East


Elihu D Richter, with Yael Stein, Alex Barnea, and Marc Sherman
Wars are not fought for territory, but for words. Man's deadliest weapon is language. He is susceptible to being hypnotized by slogans as he is to infectious diseases. And where there is an epidemic, the group mind takes over. --Arthur Koestler 1978

Genocide and its prevention both result from human choice and bystander indifference. Since the Armenian genocide, and the Holocaust, perpetrators have used dehumanizing metaphors to prepare their followers to overcome normative inhibitions that stand in the way of their becoming killers, rapists, and plunderers of members of potential victim populations. Today, one lesson from the Holocaust is that there are existential dangers associated with ignoring state-sanctioned dehumanizing hate language.

Of course, not all hate language and incitement leads to genocide, and genocide can occur without hate language and incitement. There can be hate language with and without explicit incitement propagated by rogue regimes.

We suggest that the spread of dehumanizing hate language today in the world is driving a new world-wide axis of genocide which is now recycling the motifs of genocidal-Semitism of Nazi Germany and the Islamists. We examine the differences in impact and importance between public and person-to-person “kitchen-table” incitement.

In the first section, we present a thumbnail chronology and trace the pseudo-scientific origins of state-sanctioned hate language and incitement which started with the Armenian Genocide. We present as case studies Hitler’s Holocaust, Bosnia in the former Yugoslavia, the Middle East, notably Iran, and Cambodia, and Rwanda. In Darfur, incitement was below the radar screen, and in Kenya, incitement to killing spread by text messaging, In Sri Lanka, where two sides committed mass atrocities, there was no widely reported external evidence of incitement.

In the second section, we describe and discuss the application of models and tools from public health and epidemiology for prediction and prevention, in keeping with concepts based on the precautionary principle, and examine their relevance to genocide.


Incitement and genocide: Definitions, chronology, origins and selected case studies

Introduction

From the perspective of public health and preventive medicine, if genocide—the ranking cause of violent death in the 20th century-- 280 million, is predictable, it should be preventable. It is meaningless to refer to “preventing” genocide once the killing, raping, expulsions and plundering begins. The question we raise is can most genocides be prevented by preventing state-sanctioned dehumanizing hate language and incitement? If the answer is yes, the stakes are enormous for genocide prevention everywhere in the world.

We examine this question using concepts and tools of public health, preventive medicine and epidemiology—the field which studies the distribution and determinants of diseases in populations. These tools, first developed to control and eradicate microbial diseases transmitted by water, food, air-borne and person-to-person spread, have produced spectacular advances in identifying the risks and advancing prevention of chronic non-infectious diseases, e.g., heart disease, cancer, mass disasters, injuries, and violence.

We suggest that the use of dehumanizing hate language and incitement (HL&I) all too often predicts, initiates, promotes, and catalyzes genocide. HL&I are “out there,” definable and detectable. Since the Nuremberg trials and the UN Convention on the Prevention of Genocide and its Punishment (UNGC)they are punishable as Crimes against Humanity.

This essay defines hate language and incitement, traces its use in promoting genocide and its pseudo-scientific origins, and presents case studies starting with the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust.

Hate language, dehumanization, and incitement

Hate language, Dehumanization, and Incitement refer to terms which are used to stigmatize, demonize or dehumanize groups defined by their national, ethnic, religious, racial, or political identity. Dehumanization in particular refers to hate language which includes metaphors-usually from public health and medicine-- which induce disgust, revulsion and hate for the other.

Standard definitions of incitement refer to something that incites or provokes; a means of arousing or stirring to action. Perpetrators use hate language to incite groups to commit genocide and other mass atrocities directed against vulnerable populations. When mass murder is low tech, HL&I is indispensable for mobilizing and motivating huge numbers of persons to stab, mutilate, rape, bludgeon, shoot, gas, burn and bury large numbers of victims and plunder their homes. It was the gas chambers that killed at Auschwitz, but as Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote, "Auschwitz was built not with stones, but words." Equally important, perpetrators use HL&I to silence, intimidate and desensitize bystanders. Edmund Burke's famous quote reminds us that “For evil to flourish, all that is necessary is for good men to do nothing.”

The United Nations Genocide Convention (UNGC) did not include mass killings of groups defined by their political origin, because of pressure from the Soviet Union. This exclusion meant that the Stalinist starvation campaigns against the Ukranians, the mass deportations of ethnic minorities, the starvation campaigns by the North Koreans, Mao's mass purges, and the Cambodian genocide were not covered by the UNGC - a colossal omission.

Dehumanizing hate language and genocide: A thumbnail chronology

The Young Turk regime in 1915 called the genocide of Armenians the eradication of 'dangerous microbes' in the body politic. Lenin described the bourgeoisie as parasites, insects, leeches, bloodsuckers. Such dehumanizing terms went hand-in-hand with pseudo-medical terms for measures to get rid of disease. Stalin and Beria in the early 1930’s used artificially produced mass famines to kill millions of Ukranians, and used a pseudo-medical term --'purge' ('chitki') --when later deporting ('korenizatsiia') over two million members of ethnic minorities, former members of the bourgeois and kulak classes to slave labor camps in Siberia. Half a century later, in 1988, the Soviets used the term 'ethnic purge' ('etnicheskie chistki') to describe expulsions of Azerbaijanis from Nagorno-Karabakh.

Hitler called the Jews 'parasites, plague, cancer, tumor, bacillus, bloodsucker, blood poisoner, lice, vermin, bedbugs, fleas, racial tuberculosis' on the German body that would supposedly be killed with the 'Jewish disease.' Later, the Nazis used the term `Judenrein’ which means 'Jew-free,' to stigmatize the victim group as a carrier of filth and disease, and then, as the disease itself to be eradicated. The term predated the term ‘ethnic cleansing,’ a euphemism often used by perpetrators to justify their genocidal actions and by bystanders to rationalize inaction. Mao Tse Tung’s Communist revolutionaries in China used similar language when overseeing mass murders of their enemies , as did the North Koreans who used mass starvation to kill populations considered hostile to the Communist regime. In the 1970’s, the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia used terms such as “microbes”, “parasites”, “worms” and cancer to stigmatize their victims as they carried out the mass murders of 3 million of their own countrymen. In the early 1990’s, Radovic Karovic stigmatized Bosniaks as not “belonging to the family of nations, ...of desert origin, ...and originating from a specific gene of the Ottoman Army.” Thereafter, victims of Serbian genocide in Kosovo themselves killed many belonging to Roma minorities, whom they described as “majupi,” or lower than garbage. In the 1990’s in Rwanda, Hutu radio in 1994 used the term 'cockroaches' ('inyenzi') to incite mass murder of Tutsis by machete-wielding militias.

Hate language and its pseudoscientific origins

In the 20th century, endemic bigotry, xenophobic nationalism and racist biology created an ambience conducive to the spread of dehumanizing medical metaphors of hate language to stigmatize victim groups. This ambience both fed and was fed by the flawed constructs and pseudoscience of late 19th and early 20th century eugenics and social Darwinism.

Eugenics sought to promote human progress by selection of groups and individuals considered to be genetically superior and best fit to survive and by restricting reproduction of the unfit, in keeping with distorted interpretations of Darwinian science. In the US, proponents of Eugenics provided the justifications for compulsory sterilization of inmates of mental institutions and for restrictive immigration. In Germany, medical scientists used the ethically flawed constructs of eugenics to promote “racial hygiene” of Nazi Medicine and its horrors. Starting with euthanasia of mentally impaired, Nazi doctors became leaders in implementing the Final Solution to make Europe ‘Judenrein’ including many inhuman scientific medical experiments on Jewish subjects, regarded as lab specimens. Flawed theories of race led to classification of Rwandans into short Hutus and tall Tutsis differentiated by nose lengths, carefully measured by Belgian anthropologists. Notions of racial superiority provided similar rationales for racism in North America and South Africa In the 20th century and many other locales world wide.

State-sponsored hate language and incitement as an early warning indicator in models of genocide

A classic model of genocide identifies dictatorship and asymmetric power relationships, past conflicts, unrest, political and economic failures and vulnerable target groups as circumstantial predictors. This model does not address the role of hate language and incitement as intrinsic direct triggers of violent conflicts along racial, ethnic, religious or political lines

Charny’s Genocide Early Warning System and Stanton’s Eight Stages of Genocide pioneered in drawing attention to the use of language of hate, stigmatization and dehumanization by perpetrators to recruit, motivate and mobilize followers and deter bystanders. Classification, Symbolization and Dehumanization, the first 3 of Stanton’s Eight Stages, all contain elements of incitement, and they lead to Organization, Polarization, Preparation, Extermination, and Denial.

Hate language and incitement: Public and private

There is a need to recognize that not all hate language and incitement leads to genocide, and genocide may occur without evidence of hate language or incitement. Furthermore, there can be incitement without dehumanizing hate language, and hate language without incitement. The distinction between the two may be important for legal purposes, but their consequences are usually the same. Sometimes they go together and sometimes they do not (see below). Hate language and incitement together increase risks for genocide, especially when they come from the top down in authoritarian regimes with their environments of coercion, direction and instruction. Perpetrators sometimes commit genocide without explicit external hate language and open public incitement, such as when they deliberately seek to conceal their genocidal aims e.g., exploiting famine, either from natural disaster or man-made, to starve populations they identify as enemies.

Often, so as to camouflage intent, perpetrators simultaneously project several different messages, aimed at different populations at the same time. When the messages are in “local” language, vernaculars and dialect, i.e., not English the texts, subtexts, and contexts are disputable. One message may be portrayed to the western free world, (for example, the leader might take on a role as protector of human rights). A second, is aimed at the potential victims--- in more explicit threatening language. A third message— the operational one— could be aimed at their own people – to incite to action, or to desensitize local bystanders.

Hate language without incitement and direction is present everywhere— and by itself, is generally not subject to legal prosecution. Racist, religious epithets and expressions of bigotry directed towards the other are endemic the world round, at the kitchen table, in the barroom, the locker room (e.g., Archie Bunker), the market place, and the board room. The messages may be explicit, euphemistic or coded. It is difficult to regard such language, though offensive, as an early warning sign for genocide or mass atrocities, since its specificity and predictive value is so low, and it lacks a larger context of coercion, threat, direction, intimidation or danger. But from the standpoint of public health and social psychology, the use and spread of such language is a case for action for educational interventions, directed at the communities in which it is endemic—and becomes especially critical in the era of hate language and incitement spread by the internet.

The past century has taught us that when leaders of movements or governments in power use explicit pseudo-medical and epidemiologic metaphors, such as microbes, filth, cancer, typhoid, and rats, to dehumanize victim groups, it is prudent to regard such language as an urgent warning sign of imminent genocide, and the burden of proof is on those who deny their ominous portent. This burden of proof becomes heavier when perpetrators propagate notions of in-group exclusivity based upon myths of hygiene or purity. Incitement is clearly intended to foment genocidal violence when it supports those who become the agents of genocidal actions, and is accompanied by direction, instruction, supplying, and informing.

Case studies: Incitement, propaganda, and power

Europe:

Nazi Germany-Hate language and Incitement from the top down

During the 12 years in which they were in power, the Nazis, pioneered using mass media, radio, film, and the educational system to propagate their genocidal incitement, most virulently against Jews, but also against Roma, gays, trade unionists, socialists and communists. The totalitarian rule of Nazi Germany, with its control of all resources of the State, produced an environment of coercion, control, direction and instruction. Yet, evidence is not available that the Nazi’s propaganda explicitly and publicly declared that genocidal extermination of Jews and other groups was their objective. They concealed this objective from the outside world with euphemisms and code words (e.g., “Final Solution”, Aktion) and did everything they could to conceal the mass murders in the death camps. Nazi propaganda used scenes of rats juxtaposed with stereotypes of Jews, depicted as the carriers and purveyors of filth and disease, to induce disgust and revulsion. Goebbels used aggressive repetition of simple crude messages and images to propagate revulsion and hate towards Jews. He adopted the advertising techniques of Edward Bernays, a psychologist, who pioneered in the development of the phenomenally successful campaigns of the tobacco companies to create new mass markets for cigarettes. Campaigns of dehumanization and de-legitimization, which themselves followed classification and symbolization, produced willing killers and complicit bystanders.

Nazi campaigns to dehumanize Jews and others went hand in hand with highly public campaigns to promote and protect health and hygiene (‘Rassenhygiene’) in the Master Race. The organizers of these campaigns were far ahead of their time in promoting improved nutrition and exercise, summer youth camps in the countryside, self-examination for breast cancer and industrial hygiene and safety. The Nazis used dehumanizing hate language to condition audiences to proceed from accepting a universal norm-- getting rid of disease in individuals, to accepting getting rid of diseased individuals, and then getting rid of groups of diseased individuals, and finally to getting rid of groups considered to be the disease itself. Compulsory euthanasia of the inmates of mental institutions and the gas chambers followed. Dr Karl Astel, a high ranking Nazi physician who initiated public health campaigns to promote health and hygiene in the Master Race, supervised the use of gas chambers for extermination programs in the concentration camps. Astel saw himself as protecting the Master Race against the purveyors of disease, and was also noted for his pioneering work in leading Nazi mass campaigns against smoking, even though the SS itself manufactured cigarettes to sell to soldiers.

Bosnia: Incitement as explicit threats without hate language

In Bosnia, more than 100,000 were killed in Serbian ‘ethnic cleansing’, --often a euphemism for genocide --in the wake of the break-up of former Yugoslavia. Claims that genocide was restricted to the events of Srebrenica ignore evidence of Serbian intentions going back to 1991-2, including threats to annihilate the Bosnian Muslim community. On Oct 11 1991, Radovan Karadzic made the following statement: “In two-three days, Sarajevo will vanish and there will be 500,000 dead people. In a month, Muslims will disappear from Bosnia". Two days later, Karadzic also said: “First of all, none of their leadership would make it alive. They would all be killed in a matter of several hours. They would not even have a chance to survive.”

This incitement directly preceded Serbian genocidal mass killings of civilians, reports of hundreds of prison camps, 500,000 persons in detention, 50,000 tortured persons, 20,000 estimated rapes, and 151 mass graves.

Middle East:

Dehumanizing hate language including Nazi motifs, and incitement in the Muslim world

Muslim sources beam Nazi hate language by powerful radio transmitters directed at audiences throughout Europe and the Middle East. The dehumanizing and demonizing motifs of Nazi antisemitism spread to the Middle East, where they fuse with the antisemitic motifs of Jihadist Islamic antisemitism.

Interestingly, the fanatically theocratic Muslim cults can glorify death with expropriated metaphors from a pagan cult of cleanliness and hygiene (the Nazis).

For decades, Wahabi propagandists from Saudi Arabia and Egyptian and Palestinian media have been spreading motifs strikingly similar to those of the Nazis. Yet, Egypt’s regime has what appears to be a durable peace treaty with Israel despite condoning hate language in media, school texts and places of worship, and sponsoring the broadcasting of recycled versions of the antisemitic myths of the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion." This is a scenario which for all practical purposes undermines any option for a fuller peace and reconciliation from the bottom up, even though there is a cold peace from the top down—and leaves open the possibility of future bloodshed.

Some excerpts from Saudi, Egyptian, and Palestinian sources are presented in Appendix 1.

Iran

Iran is now the epicenter for official state-sanctioned incitement to genocide. Since 1979, the leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and most notably Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have been using language identical to that of Hitler and other perpetrators, to demonize, dehumanize and delegitimize “Zionists,” a euphemism for Jews. Although most Jews in Iran do not appear to be in physical danger, since the Islamic Revolution, on several occasions Jews have been subject to show trials, imprisoned for trumped up reasons or executed.

Iranian state-sponsored hate language and incitement goes beyond that of the Nazis in that it explicitly and openly calls for the annihilation of Israel, and its context is its secret development of nuclear weapons and missile delivery systems and support, direction and instruction of terror proxies carrying out its writ, notably Hamas and Hezbollah. Since the contested Iranian elections in June 2009, ruthless suppression of political dissent now goes hand in hand with these indicators of genocidal intent. Palestinian Media Watch has documented messages by Palestinian Authority figures in the media, educational system, and mosques, using collective labeling, creating a threat, and eliminating the threat. At the time of writing, we see the re-emergence of grotesque reports of Jews harvesting the organs of Muslims, recycling older metaphors of genocidal antisemitic demonization.

Children and intergenerational effects of hate language and incitement as seen in the Middle East

Children are the most vulnerable to the effects of the toxic messages of incitement. Intergenerational transmission of hate messages has led to antisemitic motifs becoming embedded in everyday Middle East political and social culture. Burden has summarized the effects of incitement of children living in authoritarian societies and family structures, in patterning their long term attitudes and future susceptibility to becoming suicide bombers. Hamas, which rules Gaza, is a fascist terror organization whose platform calls for the destruction of Israel, and explicitly incites children acts of terror, glorified as martyrdom. Hamas uses school texts, places of worship, children’s TV programs, and summer camps to recruit the young as child terrorists or soldiers. The PA and Fatah, which are considered to be less extreme organizations, generate less explicit incitement, but use messages with subtexts which demonize and delegitimize, and preachers under their control have used dehumanizing metaphors to incite to hatred. The PA has also decided to name public places, such as schools and city squares after suicide terrorists.

Intergenerational transmission of hate language and incitement ensures the durability of the demonizing and dehumanizing motifs of antisemitism, now so deeply embedded in the Islamic world and reemerging in the western world. Furthermore, repetition creates an environment for desensitizing bystanders, and undermines attempts at conflict resolution, based on mutual respect for human life and dignity and live-and-let-live. “Our hatred for Israel is in our genes”—a statement from Syrian actress Amal ‘Arafa, testifies to the enduring effects of an environment in which hate language is both embedded and endemic.

Africa

Rwanda: Common source from the top down: The role of the only radio station—800,000 dead

Since Streicher and Goebbels, the Rwandan Genocide is the most blatant and best studied example of how architects and perpetrators, using the most popular radio station in the country, mobilized, recruited motivated, directed and instructed the Interhambawe to butcher some 800,000 Tutsis and Hutu moderates in Rwanda over a period of between 3 to 5 months in 1994.



Hate language and incitement broadcast by Radio TV Libre Milles Collines (RTVLMC)–a private corporation set up by a consortium of higher-ups in the Rwandan government to bypass the prohibitions against governmental incitement of the Arusha Accords – powered the intense ferocity of killers. RTVLMC’s broadcasts were the major source of news and information for most of the Rwandan public, and therefore had enormous influence. Fig 1 presents a rough timeline of the sequence of warning indicators, (including incitement), killings, first reports and responses for this horrific story.



In Rwanda, the machetes were the hardware, but the words were the software of this campaign. RTVLMC began referring to individual Tutsi leaders, and then groups of Tutsis, as cockroaches (‘nyenzi’ in Rwandan) in increasingly provocative language. Explicit radio messages to “kill the cockroaches” and to “do your job” preceded the outbreak of the mass butchery in April 1994. The perpetrators, using a mix of rock music and juicy gossip to gain the ear of a mass audience, broadcast carefully calibrated increases in frequency and intensity of hate language to incite to mass killing in a society where neighbors killed neighbors. The timeline below gives details of the buildup in incitement prior to the mass killings.

Darfur: Was there Incitement below the radar screen?



In September 2004, the US State Department declared that acts of genocide had occurred in Darfur. In Darfur, (where the death toll has been estimated to be up to or exceeding 400,000), the Sudanese regime supported, protected and supplied the Janjaweed’s genocidal activities, but denies genocidal intent.

John Hagan has shown there was an increased use of racial epithets by Janjaweed rapists when they were joined by soldiers from the Sudanese Army—a finding suggesting, but not proving, the possibility of incitement and direction from the top down, below the level of detection, directly reaching the perpetrators, without the use of open incitement to motivate the entire population.

In Darfur, the record so far suggests that perpetrators carried out mass killing without broadcasting hate language and incitement, so as to conceal intent and a pattern of central direction.

Kenya: Person-to-person spread of incitement

In Kenya, election campaigns have been shown to be the high risk periods for what we will call a viral-like person-to-person spread of incitement, at first by word of mouth and then by text messaging—a highly efficient method. In the aftermath of disputed election results in 2008, and perhaps even before tribal elders incited their followers to kill, plunder, and pillage. The inciters channeled endemic everyday street violence in the poor countryside and incited mobs to burn, kill and plunder rival tribal and political groupings. Because the inciters used vernacular dialects in isolated and remote rural settings, the story was not picked by urban based media until after violence started. The death toll was at least 1300 killed and 300,000 displaced.

Mediators from the African Union were able to bring together shaken elites from two rival groupings just when the situation reached the tipping point and Kenya was on the brink of becoming another Rwanda. Pressures from the top down aborted the spread of the killings, burnings, and expulsions. Governmental initiatives led to the use of text messaging to counter the inciters’ text messaging, It remains to be seen if the current uneasy quiet will be broken with the next election.

Indian Subcontinent

Sri Lanka: State Discrimination and Tamilese terror without overt public incitement

In Sri Lanka, at the time of writing, a bloody civil war has ended with the Sinhalese government killing some 20,000 Tamilese, brutally suppressing the Tamilese minority, and pushing the entire group into no-escape zones in the northeast and southeast corners of the island, where there were some 200,000 refugees in the late summer and early autumn of 2009. The government has seized male children below 10 years old, and taken them away, and there is no information on their subsequent fate. More recently, the Sinhalese Government forces released pregnant women from badly overcrowded refugee enclaves into surrounding areas where there were no potable water, food or shelter, and where they were left to fend for themselves. These reports suggest the possibility that there may have been intentions to destroy a population, in whole or in part, via conditions simulating a man-made disaster.

The picture is unclear concerning the role of hate language and incitement by the Sinhalese government and the Tamilese Tigers terror groups—the latter were the inventors of the suicide belt bomb-against civilians and military bases, actions which have had the result of diverting outside attention away from their oppressive mistreatment, and the social, cultural and economic discrimination against them. There have been bitter accusations and equally bitter denials of whether the Central Government’s actions have been genocidal—a subject beyond the scope of this review.

Over the years, in Sri Lanka there has been intense controversy over the boundaries of journalistic freedom and speech. Information is not readily available, however, on the role of incitement by both sides in promoting the discrimination, the terror, and the backlash to the terror. Watchdog groups have accused the government of inciting to violence against journalists, and have catalogued a list of journalists who have been kidnapped, beaten and killed, despite laws in the books guaranteeing basic freedoms.

Conclusion:

This overview of the history of incitement and hate language and its relationship to genocide in various scenarios requires us to examine whether the prevention of incitement will help us prevent genocide around the world.

Can we go from description of proof of intent after the event to predict and prevent?

In a second section of this paper that follows in the next issue of GPN, we describe and discuss the application of models and tools from public health and epidemiology for prediction and prevention, in keeping with new opportunities based on the Precautionary Principle.

Acknowledgments: We thank Jacey Macrae, Isabella Glaser, Laura Seton, and David Lisbona for research and editorial assistance, and Professors Israel Charny and Greg Gordon and Greg Stanton for advice and encouragement.

A second part continuing this article will in appear in GPN Issue 4.

Professor Elihu D Richter MD MPH is Editor and Director of GPN World Genocide Situation Room and Associate Director of the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide in Jerusalem. He is Head of the Genocide Prevention Program at Hebrew University-Hadassah School of Public Health and Community Medicine and former head of the Unit of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. He has published and lectured on the use of public health models for the prediction and prevention of genocide.

Yael Stein MD is a researcher-team member of the World Genocide Situation Room, the website of the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide in Jerusalem of GPN. She has experience in Occupational Medicine, Epidemiology and Hospital Administration and is currently studying towards a PhD degree in Public Health at the Hebrew University-Hadassah School of Public Health and Community Medicine. Yael describes herself as a ”goal-oriented, idealistic entrepreneur, seeking spiritual and ethical fulfillment” in her work; “I focus on making a difference.”

Alex Barnea, MSc in Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict is Research Assistant and Project Manager of the World Genocide Situation Room section of GPN, the website of the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide in Jerusalem. He acted as project manager for UK relief work in Tsunami-affected Thailand and later as consultant to a Cambodian NGO - orphanage.

Marc Sherman, M.L.S. is Editor and Director of the Holocaust and Genocide Review. He also is the Director of Information Services for the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide in Jerusalem, an Associate Editor of the Encyclopedia of Genocide and many volumes of the Institute’s series, Genocide, A Critical Bibliographic Review.


Appendix 1:

Hate Language and Incitement in the Middle East
Excerpts from School Textbooks and Media


Saudi Arabia school textbooks:

"The Jews are wickedness in its very essence."

"Now it [Palestine] is occupied by the Jews, a people of treachery and betrayal, who have gathered there from every place: from Poland, Spain, America and elsewhere. Their end, by God's will, is perdition."


Egyptian school Textbooks:

"The lesson’s goals -
It is desirable that at the end of the lesson the student will be able to:
• Define the reasons for the war between the Muslims and the Jews of the Qaynuqa’ tribe.
• Mention some of the Jews’ blameworthy characteristics."

"The description of the Jews in the Qur’an is an eternal miracle [in itself], since it described them by the traits to which they have adhered throughout all their generations, such as stubbornness, material greed, slander, hypocrisy, plotting against Islam and the Muslims, and waging a war which is multifarious in its methods and manifestations and one in its true nature and goal."

"The Protected People [Ahl al-Dhimmah] shall not go out with them [i.e., with the Muslims, for prayer for rain outside the city]… because the gathering of infidels is expected to bring forth a [divine] curse."

"[One] of the rules derived by the [Muslim religious] scholars from these [Qur’anic] verses is the following:
1. Obligation to fight the infidels with utmost vigor and power until
they become weak, their state disappears and they submit to the rule of the law of Islam."

Egyptian TV:

Renowned Egyptologist Dr. Zahi Hawass, on Egyptian TV: "Jews Control the Entire World"
Interviewer: "So [the Jews] were dispersed in 133 C.E.?"
Zahi Hawass: "That's right."
Interviewer: "And they didn't reunite until 1900?"
Zahi Hawass: "Exactly."
Interviewer: "So they were dispersed for 18 centuries?"
Zahi Hawass: "For 18 centuries, they were dispersed throughout the world. They went to America and took control of its economy. They have a plan. Although they are few in number, they control the entire world."

Egyptian Cleric Ahmad 'Eid Mihna on Egyptian TV: "The Jews Are Behind Misery, Hardship, Usury, and Whorehouses"

Palestinian Authority school Textbooks:

Israel is portrayed as a power that harms its immediate environment, as enumerated in a list of more than twenty-five crimes, beginning with its very establishment, through the occupation of Palestine both in 1948 and 1967, expulsion of the Palestinian people, oppression of those under its control, aggression against neighboring Arab states, massacre of Palestinians, assassination of Palestinian leaders, destruction of the Palestinian economy, house demolition, stealing Palestinian land and water, breaking of Palestinian
territorial unity, attempts at obliterating Palestinian national identity and heritage, usurpation or desecration of Palestinian Christian and Muslim holy places, and finally, Israel’s responsibility for social ills such as drug addiction in Palestinian society, the meager participation of Palestinian women in economic activity, family violence, etc.

The Zionist movement is presented as a racist movement connected with Western imperialism.

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a czarist Russian fabrication from the early twentieth century, is presented in a PA history textbook for grade 10 as the secret resolutions of the First Zionist Congress. The text reads: “There is a group of confidential resolutions adopted by the Congress and known by the name The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the goal of which was world domination. They were brought to light by Sergey Nilos and translated into Arabic by Muhammad Khalifah Al-Tunisi.

Following worldwide protests, the PA issued a revised edition of this book, but for a long time there was no indication that the old copies had been removed from schools and stores. The 2007 revised book does not include references to the Protocols.

"Your enemies killed your children, split open your women’s bellies, held your revered elderly men by the beard, and led them to the death pits."

This text was written by the Egyptian writer Mustafa Lutfi al-Manfaluti, who died in 1924. It was not originally directed against the Jews, but its inclusion in a Palestinian textbook of today clearly has a demonizing effect regarding Jews.

Palestinian TV:

New Antisemitic Animated Film on Hamas' Al-Aqsa TV Vilifies Palestinian Authority: PA Security Forces Help Stereotypical Blood-Drinking Jews
Settler Massacres Palestinians to Drink Their Blood, and is Welcomed by PA Officer
Father: "Son, the five most delicious things in the world are three..."
Settler: "I know."
Settler and his father: "Palestinian blood."
Father: "Go, son. Drink their blood, and come back safely."
Settler: "I will do it for you, father."
Father: "This is a map of Hebron. Take it. You may need it."
Settler: "I will not need it, because I am not Gilad [Shalit], and the West Bank is not Gaza. Calm down. Shalom, father."

The bear puppet host, Nassur, of a Hamas children's TV program, and Saraa Barhoum, 11 year old Child Star:
[Seven year-old Palestinian child on phone tells how his father, a member of the Hamas Al-Qassam Brigades, “died as a Shahid (Martyr).”]
Nassur to child on phone: “What do you want to do to the Jews who shot your father?”
Child on phone: “I want to kill them.”
Saraa: “We don't want to do anything to them, just expel them from our land.”
Nassur: “We want to slaughter (Nidbah-hom) them, so they will be expelled from our land, right?”
Saraa: “Yes. That's right. We will expel them from our land using all means.”
Nassur: “And if they don't want [to go] peacefully, by words or talking, we’ll have to [do it] by slaughter.” (Shaht)


Turkish TV:

New television drama depicts Israel Defense Forces soldiers as brutal murderers.

The show, called "Ayrilik", features a love story that develops between the lead characters during Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip, according to Israeli media reports.

A partial episode available on YouTube depicts multiple images of the IDF brutalizing the Palestinian population by shooting children in the chest and kicking elderly people on the ground, among other things.

The Turkish Web site of TRT includes a brief explanation of the series and announces that the production is “a heartfelt display of the events in Palestine, which was occupied in 1948.” The series, the website said, “portrays the sorrow of women and children, in particular, and gives a voice to the suffering of mothers whose children and husbands were slaughtered.”

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Tuesday, 22 June 2010

Iranian Journalist Sentenced to 13.5 Years Imprisonment


Maziar Bahari, a journalist of Iranian origin who lives in London, has reported that an Iranian court has sentenced him in absentia to 13.5 years imprisonment and to 74 blows of a cane. Bahari, who writes for Newsweek from London said that “the conviction tells more about the Iranian regime than about me.” The charges against Bahari include humiliating the President (Ahmadinejad) and the Supreme Leader (Homeini) and for disrupting public order. Bahara filmed a demonstration in Teheran that developed into a violent confrontation between the security forces and the public demonstrators. “I was told that to report such an event incites the public to rebel against the government.”

On June 21, 2009 Bahari was taken out of his bed to jail. In a gripping detailed report of his imprisonment, tortures and release published in Newsweek, Bahari describes "I would later discover that I had been picked up by the intelligence division of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC. Before the June election, this unit of the Guards was little known. The IRGC reports directly to Khamenei and has been growing dramatically more powerful. Many suspect that the Guards rigged the election. Certainly they led the crackdown that followed.

"IRGC intel is now responsible for Iran's internal security, which means that its rampaging paranoias have suffused the regime. There remain players within the system who can make rational decisions about Iran's international interests; if there weren't, I would still be in jail. But the Guards are exacerbating the Islamic Republic's worst instincts, its insecurity and deep suspiciousness."

Bahari spent nearly four months in jail but was released on bail of 3 billion rials ($300,000) and allowed to leave the country to join his British wife in London in October.

Bahari's sentencing occurred on the same day that five Kurdish activists were hanged following their conviction of membership of armed opposition groups and involvement in bombings. The five were sentenced to death in 2008 after they were found guilty of "Moharebeh," a term Iran uses to describe a major crime against Islam and the state. Opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi was quoted as warning the executions were part of an "unfair trend" against activists following the election.

Sources:
The Epoch Times, Israeli edition (May 18-26) Weekly issue #162. (Translated from the Hebrew)

Bahari, Maziar (November 30, 2009). 118 days, 12 hours, 54 minutes. Newsweek.
Please click on the following link to read the whole article http://www.newsweek.com/id/223862

The Seattle Times (May 12, 2010). Iran sentences Newsweek journalist in absentia http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/PrintStory.pl?document_id=2011833720&zsection_id=2003905675&slug=apmlirannewsweekreporter&date=20100511
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Monday, 21 June 2010

Oral Histories from Darfur


Please see below two personal stories from Darfuris.

Abakar become like a brother to me and a big part of my family in the UK when working with the Darfuri community in the UK. We continue to be in good contact. --Nikki Levitan, Researcher, GPN Genocide Prevention Now

Fatima is a 60 year old woman from Darfur, Sudan. She fell victim to the genocide in Darfu when the Janjaweek entered her village in the early hours of the morning. During the attack on her village Fatima witnessed her husband being shot dead in front of her and then was taken away to be gang raped and tortured. Fatima managed to flee Darfur with her eight children to the capital of Sudan, Khartoum. She was separated from her children when escaping Sudan to Egypt. From there she came to Israel where she now lives in South Tel Aviv. She has very little contact with her family back in Sudan.

Abakar, from the Zaghawa tribe, lived in a small village near Al Fashir. Abakar just turned 17 when his village was attacked around 4 am. He heard men on horseback (janjaweed) enter the village, gunshots and people screaming.
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Sunday, 20 June 2010

Film Awakens France's Shame in the Holocaust

Director tells story of how 13,000 Jews were herded into Paris velodrome
One of the darkest events in modern French history has been almost banished from the screen, until now. Now a movie, Le Rafle, is the first to address head-on the notorious persecution of French Jews during the Second World War.

The film tells the story of the arrest of 13,000 Parisian Jews, including 4,000 children, by French police in July 1942, who were herded into a giant cycling stadium, the Vélodrome d'Hiver, or Vél d'Hiv, close to the Eiffel Tower. Almost all of them died in Nazi death or concentration camps.

Vél'd'Hiv has come to symbolise the enthusiastic participation of many – not all – French officials and police officers in the Holocaust. An estimated 76,000 Jews were deported from France between 1940 and 1944 of whom it is believed that only 2,500 survived the death and concentration camps.

Former president Jacques Chirac saluted the film's willingness to portray "atrocious images of officials in French uniforms separating mothers from their children ... and throwing them brutally into wagons of death". In a newspaper article, Mr Chirac recalled that, soon after his arrival in the Elysée Palace in 1995, he became the first French leader to admit officially that the French state had played an active part in the Holocaust. "There can be no great nation, no national unity ... without a willingness to remember," he wrote in 1995.

Sources:
Lichfield, John (March 8, 2010). Film awakens France's shame in the Holocaust. London Independent. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/film-awakens-frances-shame-in-the-holocaust-1917807.html

Lichfield, John (March 8, 2010). http://www.thestatesman.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=321785&catid=37
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Saturday, 19 June 2010

Genocidal Indoctrination: Palestinian Indoctrination to Genocide




Daphne Burdman

Includes Video Examples of Fatah and Hamas Indoctrination for Genocide
Emotion-rousing "hate-speech" vilifies identified targets as the essential factor and precedes logic in successful indoctrination. The message is more readily accepted by collective, authoritarian societies where obedience is the rule and a quasi-Pavlovian response. Such societies are particularly prone to successful indoctrination, contrasting with individualist societies where diverse voices give rise to "tea-party" and other rejectionist phenomena.

All these elements, and more, are readily identified in current Palestinian indoctrination to hatred of the Jews - namely an authoritarian collective society; persistent official media messages of victimization by Jews, Israel, and prior Western "colonial" occupations, with blame of Israel for all Palestinian woes and deficits; hate-messages through virulent television programs for children from the earliest age; incitement and indoctrination incorporated into school-books and school education; summer camps with military training, and community-based events such as memorial services to suicide martyrs, naming of streets, soccer teams and public squares for these martyrs. A typical television image evolves into the boy smiling and happy as he waves his kite where he is among the clouds in paradise.


O God, you should deal with the aggressive Zionists,
O, God, dissolve their unity and disperse them and show them the wonders of your power on them,
O God...kill them...and do not leave [even] one of them

[Al-Fateh – The Hamas Web Magazine for Children:
Indoctrination to Jihad, Annihilation and Self-Destruction
Issue 140, January 15, 2009]

Many in the Western World, even in Israel, are unaware of the existence and power of successful indoctrination.

Emotion, and not logic, has long been theoretically accepted as the keystone to successful indoctrination. Emotion-rousing "hate-speech" vilifies identified targets as the essential factor and precedes logic in successful indoctrination. The message is more readily accepted by collective, authoritarian societies where obedience is the rule, and a quasi- Pavlovian response. Such societies are particularly prone to successful indoctrination, contrasting with individualist societies where diverse voices give rise to "tea-party" and other rejectionist phenomena.

A convincing model is afforded by the pre-eminently successful Adolph Hitler incitement and indoctrination regime. Hitler inherited a newly developed social democracy which replaced the Bismark authoritarian regime but to which he in common with many eminent Germans, wished to return. He mobilized his totalitarianized Germany to lethal anti-Semitism through invoking the victimization of Germans by the Armistice Treaty of Versailles (1919) with its harsh economic consequences, and, as importantly, minimizing the German ego by severely limiting its military status and annexing large portions of land, considered German, to France, Belgium, Denmark etc.. Furthermore he later claimed and successfully propagandized the victimization of the German people by world Jewish power instigating (or some would say reawakening) massive anti-Semitic hatred by invoking The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. In Mein Kampf he emphasized the historical precedents of emotional arousal (by which he was inspired), describing "an army of agitators" who precipitated the French Revolution, and the "apostles of agitation" who, rather than through Lenin's writings, actualized the Bolshevist Revolution. He knew, and prescribed, how to increase suggestibility by verbal and non-verbal means, holding evening rallies with massed attendees tired and off-guard, in semi-darkness with flickering lights from numerous blazing torches. Rousing songs – often in 4:4 march time climaxed with his demagogic orations inflaming the audience to fever pitch, his voice screaming and his fist pummeling the air.

Increased suggestibility to external suggestions and commands by arousal of emotions per se, and through various non-verbal components, are vitally important to successful indoctrination and may take various forms described below. Verbal and non-verbal indoctrination methods increase the individual's level of susceptibility to and acceptance of external suggestions, and hence successful indoctrination. These together with psychological mechanisms are fully analyzed elsewhere.

Hitler emphasized the importance of early education. At age ten young boys entered the Deutsches Jungvolk, and graduated at 13 to the Hitler Jugend (Hitler Youth) which taught, trained, and ran after-school and summer camps where marching with flags and "patriotic" songs was allied with athletic and military training, including bayonet drill, grenade throwing, gas defense etc. The equivalent girls' movement emphasized strong athletics and preparation for motherhood. Youths learned that their first allegiance was to the Hitler Third Reich, even betraying their own parents if these were perceived as disloyal.

All these elements, and more, are readily identified in current Palestinian indoctrination to hatred of the Jews - namely an authoritarian collective society; persistent official media messages of victimization by Jews, Israel, and prior Western "colonial" occupations with blame of Israel for all Palestinian woes and deficits; hate-messages through virulent television programs for children from the earliest age; incitement and indoctrination incorporated into school-books and school education; summer camps with military training, and community-based events such as memorial services to suicide martyrs, naming of streets, soccer teams and public squares for these martyrs. Indoctrination is enhanced by using appropriate rewards or punishments contingent on the pupil's responses with reinforcement of "correct" responses. A powerful reinforcer is parental, family and societal approval or disapproval.

Educational methods of learning by rote, time-honored from tribal days, continue to this day with memorization of the entire Quran at schools and madrassahs, and discouragement of original thinking.

While Hitler the demagogue provided his own ideology with Mein Kampf virtually replacing the Holy Bible, Palestinian ideology became an entity comprising nationalist and extremist religious Islamist elements the complexities of which will be discussed later.

An impressive indoctrination clip from Palestinian Authority official TV was repeated from 2001 to 2003, and again in 2006 and 2008, celebrating the "martyrdom" of Muhammad Al-Dura, allegedly killed in his father's arms by IDF crossfire. This was later disputed, considered staged, and accusations of libel were only refuted through a series of lawsuits in the French courts. In the meanwhile the episode fired up both indoctrination of Palestinian youth to deliberate martyrdom, and world-wide anti-Semitic and anti-Israel demonstrations against the purported Israeli oppressors of the alleged Palestinian victims.

Increased suggestibility by non-verbal means is clearly evident in many early official Palestinian Authority TV videos, of which an outstanding example is the Al-Dura TV clip captured as a video by Palestinian Media Watch, an Israeli NGO. The strong beat of martial music increases suggestibility, while rapid scene changes and color effects rivet the attention in this episode which evidences much effort and stage-management. An idyllic beach scene with sweet music depicts the young Al-Dura running alongside the sea calling to children..."I am waving to you , not in parting, but to say follow me..." The scene changes to thunder and lightening, and Al Aqsa Mosque is seen through a broken brick wall; the music develops a pronounced military beat, giant waves are roaring now onto the beach..... the boy now is flying a kite, red roses opening, then becoming pallid and faded. A beautiful red-haired [famous] woman singer is accompanying with the refrain: "How sweet is the fragrance of the martyrs. How sweet is the fragrance of the earth its thirst quenched by the gush of blood flowing from the youthful body...[repeated]......... The boy cried: O father, till we meet, till we meet, I will go with no fear and without crying......I will go to my place in heaven. How sweet is the fragrance of the martyrs. Meanwhile the scene evolves into the boy smiling and happy as he waves his kite where he is among the clouds in paradise, while the last scene shifts to a group of boys in the street throwing stones at undoubtedly though unseen, Israeli soldiers.

Many such episodes show a young boy going off to martyrdom, preparing the inevitable pre-suicide bombing video with Palestinian flag, Quran and gun, or singing encouragement to parents: "Don't Cry for Me. Mother..." Others show stone-throwers, or a boy emoting his martyrdom to be dedicated to the honor of his mother, or the honor of Allah.

Children at school learn to repetitively praise martyrdom with rewards for "politically correct" answers, or with chanting, and rhythmic hand-clapping as in "Palestine is my mother and my father, I have let the land drink my blood, And I have loved the way of the Shahada [martyrdom for Allah]. Schools or Disney-like cartoon animal-presenters show the map of Israel and the Palestinian areas as all of Palestine and emphasize this by naming the big cities and geographic landmarks of Israel as "Ours" namely Palestine. There is no mention of the Israeli presence nor of Jewish history in the region. The Palestinian Authority school textbooks repeat these themes but are perhaps more verbally cautious about killing Jews since the new versions began to appear from CE2000.

The originally nationalist Palestinian Authority TV indoctrination clips generally concentrate on martyrdom and nationalist themes. Hillel Frisch (2005) suggested that Yasser Arafat introduced martyrdom themes and Qu'ranic language in PA indoctrination as a recruitment mechanism, particularly during war periods, while a Lebanese source considered "Islamist discourse [as] also integral to the movement", with the content of Nels Johnson and Saqr Abu Fakhr cited by Ido Zelkovitz that: "Indeed, even as Western diplomats seek to bolster Fatah's Abbas as an alternative to Hamas, they underestimate the degree to which Palestinian nationalism intertwines itself with Islam", and Emanuel Sivan on "...the fused national and religious symbols......to use Islam as an instrument of mobilization". One can speculate as to what extent such underestimations will return one day to bite these Western diplomats. To further confuse the picture, as I write (March 29 2010), the Jerusalem Post headlines, "PA purges educators, mosque leaders suspected of affiliation with Hamas: Firing of Hundreds of teachers, thousands of imams intended to undermine Islamist movement's influence in West Bank". Therein a source states: "We are determined to fight against incitement and political activities in mosques and schools.........This is part of our obligations under the terms of the road map." Yet both Salam Fayad and Mahmud Abbas sent personal emissaries with their condolences to the funeral of terrorist Abdallah Daud enumerating the Shahid 's virtues as reported in Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, March 31, 2010, and Al-Quds, March 28, 2010 (that is, within two days of the Jerusalem Post article, which also noted that "...preachers are asked to seek approval.....for their sermons....to make sure that they don't contain fiery or anti-PA rhetoric."). The double message is explicit. It underlines a continuing need for utmost caution by Israel in the interpretation of Palestinian declarations.

Backing up briefly regarding inherent ambiguities, theoretical underpinnings of Islam regarding the Western nation-states since approximately the mid-Nineteenth Century have been analyzed as a "conformism" based on Qur'anic verse (al-Anfal 8.61), "If they incline to peace, then make peace with them," thereby indicating acceptance of international law, conduct, and peace with non-Islamic countries considered peaceful, but at the same time forbidding submission to them [the peaceful countries] with the admonition: "Peaceful coexistence should be sanctioned by treaties that 'do not impinge on the essential laws of Islam.'"

By contrast, the cataclysmic ideology lauding and insisting on death for Allah by martyrdom introduced the emerging schism of Islam - the Muslim Brotherhood – (1928) by Hassan Al-Banna who invoked the "remaking of the world.....to establish hakimiyyat Allah/ "Allah's rule," thereby establishing principles of militant totalitarian Islamist religious fundamentalism. Since the 1970's this has become an increasingly powerful mass movement. The ideology abrogated earlier Meccan spiritual messages of the Quran, replacing them with later Medina period Qur'anic injunctions to fight/qital, and incorporated the teachings of "founding fathers" Hasan al-Banna and Sayyid Qutb. Qutb had returned to the old division of the world into dar-al-Islam (house of peace) and dar al-harb (house of war, which includes all non-Muslims). Its finally evolved form justifies the "use of force" indiscriminately against all unbelievers and against those Muslims who are suspected of merely nominal Islamic adherence, loosely applying the term 'jihad' (changed from its original Quranic usage of 'defensive' jihad) with a "glorification of fighting and death." Qutb's usage to include 'nominal' Muslims allows 'jihad' against more "moderate" Islamic, non-Islamist, rulers. Qutb spent several years in the USA, and came away with a profound hatred and loathing of that country and its culture.

Specific Qur'anic passages quoted by Al-Banna delineate his ideology of hakimiyyat Allah, which form the template for incitement and indoctrination themes. For example: "Fighting is obligatory for you, much as you dislike it" (al-Baqara -Sura 2.Verse 216); "If you should die or be slain in the cause of Allah, his mercy will surely be better than all the riches you amass" ('Imran 3.158); and "We shall richly reward them whether they die or conquer" (al-Nisa 4.74). "Fight against those who neither believe in Allah nor in the Last Day......until they pay for the tribute out of hand and are utterly subdued" (al-Tauba 9.29). Al-Banna editorializes with the statement, "The great reward for Muslims who fight is to kill or be killed for the sake of Allah "..thus glorifying death by martyrdom which "seems to legitimize...suicidal terrorist acts......". Qutb incorporated the message of the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" and the need for "liberation, as an uprising against 'the Jewish conspiracy'….[and against] U.S. policies steered by 'world Jewry'" thus specifically targeting world Jewry and the USA.. And it is in this context that the egregious genocidal theme to kill the Jews becomes rampant in indoctrination, constituting the final step of the "great leap forward" namely from promoting martyrdom, to promoting jihad against all non-believers, to specific anti-Semitic genocidal incitement and indoctrination. It is ubiquitous in the sermons of clerics at the mosques, in schoolbooks, in official TV presentations, and elsewhere.

Hamas, Fatah and PATV sources are all involved. Here are a few of the abundant available video examples:

Source: Al-Aqsa TV (Hamas), Sept. 22, 2009. See PMW. http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=455

Nassur: There won't be any Jews or Zionists, if Allah wills. They'll be erased.
Nassur to child on phone: What do you want to do to the Jews who shot your father?
Child on phone: I want to kill them.
Saraa: We don't want to do anything to them. Just expel them from our land." [Saraa has disagreed]
Nassur: We want to slaughter (Nidbah-hom) them, so they will be expelled from our land, right?
Saraa: Yes, that's right..............." [Saraa has been over-ruled]
Nassur:"And if they don't want to go peacefully, by words or talking, we'll have to [do it by] slaughter.

Source: Al-Rissala (Hamas weekly) April 23 2007 See PMW.
…[Eventually] everyone will know that we did this [suicide attacks] only because our Lord commanded so – 'I did it not of my own accord [Quran] – and so that people will know that the extermination of Jews is good for the inhabitants of the world.

Source: Al-Aqsa TV (Hamas), March 5, 2010. See PMW.
...Allah, we have entrusted you with the throats of the Jews; Allah, count them and kill them one by one, do not leave even one of them upon the land of Palestine.

Source: Palestinian TV (Fatah), April 20, 2007. Source PMW.
Ahmad Bahar, Acting Chairman of Parliament (Hamas):
…[Referring to America wallowing in blood in Iraq and Afghanistan ]...America is defeated and Israel is defeated, and was defeated in Lebanon and in Palestine...Make us victorious over the infidel people....Allah, take hold of the Jews and their allies, Allah, take hold of the Americans and their allies...Allah, count them and kill them to the last one and don't leave even one.

Source: Palestinian Authority TV Jan. 29, 2010. Excerpts from a Friday Sermon in the Bourin Mosque in Nablus. The preacher's name is not given.
I note that the preacher is dressed in a Western business suit, shirt and tie in contrast to the usual clerical robes. See MEMRI, The Middle East Research Institute http://www.memritv.org/clip_transcript/en/2367.htm See also: PMW - main address as above. [PMW notes that PATV is under the control of PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas]..."Our mutual enmity with the Jews is a matter of faith more than an issue pertaining to occupation and land...Jews will always be Jews...Jews will not cease to be hostile to the Muslims. The Prophet Muhammad said: "Whenever two Jews find themselves alone with a Muslim, they think of killing him."......The Prophet Muhammad said: " You will fight the Jews, and you will kill them, until the trees and stones speak..."Oh Muslim...there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him..." ...This land will only be liberated through Jihad."

Source:
`From Al-Fateh, the Hamas movement's web magazine for children, there are many imaginative and illustrative excerpts:


From Issue 13, September 2003-
....We will say clearly to the treacherous Arab countries ....and to the [Palestinian] Authority..."Return from the path of supporting the Jews...because whoever helps a traitor is a traitor…[take the path] to war until victory or to death in battle. "

From Issue 25, March 15 2004
"...The shahid ...boarded bus No.18, his hand on the detonation switch...[thinking] He who oppresses our people and grinds the bones of the children of the rocks and whose prayer leads him to commit a massacre deserves none other than this, and in his cry "Allahu Akbar" [God is great] he pressed down with his finger...Allah, how great is shahada !

The Editors [of IMPACT-SE] point out that Al-Fateh prepares children to become shahids and "systematically exposes [them] to graphic images of torn limbs and dead bodies – desensitizing them to violence and death...creating the next generation of suicide bombers." [To this end the magazine competently depicts clever and imaginative material]

The nationalist P.A. message since Oslo I (1993) has decried Jews/Zionist claims and rights to any portion of Israeli territory, restrained in earlier years to promoting martyrdom rather than "killing" by clever word utilization. Yasser Arafat (Jan.1, 1995) in a public address said: "We renew our oath to the martyrs...I say that all of us are made for martyrdom...on behalf of the martyrs who still live...that we stand by our oath to pursue [the battle]." From Palestinian Television.

Almost all recent statements about martyrdom and killing of Jews attribute these as the will and action of the Prophet Allah raising the question as to whether this is true "reverence" or is it a convenient form of disinformation? The Germans are said to have hidden their Final Solution from the populace using euphemisms "emigration" or "resettlement" in place of transportation by death trains to the concentration camps; "gas chambers" were promoted as solely for "disinfection", and so on, ostensibly as a cover-up in the event of losing the war. So the level of awareness of the German public remains somewhat controversial. In parallel one can question whether the format of PA indoctrination provides a tactical false front to protect against charges of genocide. Certainly due to international ignorance of these matters and to clever media campaigns the Palestinian Authority has succeeded only too well in creating a favorable impression on international onlookers.

Well before Sayyid Qutb's initiatives, Nazi Germany's extensive broadcasts to the Arab world included propaganda about the inherent evil of Jews, selective readings from the Quran, and information about the purported international Jewish conspiracy of The Protocols . The track runs through Haj Amin al- Husseini, Sayyid Qutb, The Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas and Hezbollah.

Daphne Burdman, M.D. is a physician graduated from London University, St Mary's Hospital Medical School, who specialized as pathologist and psychiatrist in the USA. She was Assistant Clinical Professor of Pathology at SUNY-Stonybrooke, and has published case material and research in both pathology and psychiatry as well as regarding psychological issues of Palestinian indoctrination. She served in the US Army in Europe with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, res., now retired.

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