Hamas: Jews Planned Holocaust to Kill Handicapped Among Them

The Muslims who repeat this myth are a cancerous, pathological, godless, detestable, jealous tribe of liars:

Hamas-run television in Gaza broadcast a dastardly new version of Holocaust denial on the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day – claiming the Jews carried out the genocide to rid themselves of the “disabled and handicapped” among them.

On the program, Amin Dabur, head of the Palestinian Center for Strategic Research, lied while stating that "the Israeli Holocaust - the whole thing was a joke, and part of the perfect show that [Zionist leader and future Israeli prime minister] Ben Gurion put on." The "young energetic and able" were sent to Israel, while the handicapped were sent "so there would be a Holocaust."

Click here to see video, broadcast on Al-Aqsa TV on April 18, 2008.

Did French Television Play Fast and Loose with Journalistic Rules in the Al-Dura Case?

The French embrace Arabism and mendacity. Via Did French Television Play Fast and Loose with Journalistic Rules in the Al-Dura Case?:

Did France 2 reporter Charles Enderlin play fast and loose with journalistic rules in order to make his report more dramatic? In the media libel case, the most startling new evidence to emerge from the screening in court of the raw footage is that at the moment when millions of television viewers were led to believe Mohammed al-Dura had died, the boy was in fact alive. The last frames - which come after the heart-rending sequence that concluded the broadcast version - show him lifting his arm and looking towards the camera.

There was some surprise that the "rushes" did not last the full 27 minutes as originally reported, but only 18. According to Enderlin, who was in court, this was because the original cassette had been transferred at the time to a master copy in accordance with standing practice, and several minutes of uninteresting material had been wiped.

French Court Screens Al-Durah Video Footage

The truth always comes out. 9 minutes of film are missing. From French Court Screens Al-Durah Video Footage:

I am in Paris where I have attended the Court of Appeal special session called to witness the 27 minutes of hitherto unseen footage of the ‘killing’ of Mohammed al Durah which the court had required France 2 to produce. For readers who are unfamiliar with this scandal, I wrote about it here, here and here.

What it actually produced was 18 minutes out of the 27 it was required to bring forward. From this footage, which according to France 2’s Palestinian cameraman was filmed during an implausible 45 minutes of continuous shooting by Israeli soldiers, there is no evidence that anyone at all was killed or injured -- including Mohammed al Durah who by the end of the frames in which he figured seemed to be still very much alive and unmarked by any wound whatsoever.

It is clear to anyone looking at this in detail that the whole thing was staged, not least from the devastating evidence which shows the boy raising his arm and peeping through his fingers seconds after France 2 correspondent Charles Enderlin said he had been shot dead. From this footage, there is no evidence that anyone at all was killed or injured - including Mohammed al-Durah, who by the end of the frames in which he figured seemed to be still very much alive and unmarked by any wound whatsoever.

After the hearing Professor Richard Landes, one of the people who had already seen the contested footage, said that two scenes had been cut out which clearly showed that the violence had been staged -- including one in which a Palestinian preparing to throw a missile is suddenly picked up and carried into an ambulance despite showing no signs of injury. This scene, said Landes, was filmed by Reuters, who actually filmed the France 2 cameraman filming it. Yet there was no sign of it today.

Although the footage shown was supposed to have been filmed during continuous firing by the Israelis for 45 minutes, one child was pictured riding a bicycle through the melee. When it came to the footage of the "killing" of Mohammed al-Durah, the sequence was not a continuous narrative but was repeatedly broken up and spliced onto footage of other scenes.

There were many very strange things about this footage which just didn’t add up. When it came to the footage of the ‘killing’ of Mohammed al Durah, the following stood out:

* This sequence was not a continuous narrative but was repeatedly broken up and spliced onto footage of other scenes from the demonstration

* Although the France 2 cameraman had told a German film-maker, Esther Shapira, that he had filmed six minutes of the al Durah father and son under continuous Israeli fire, the footage of them lasted for less than one minute

* There was a camera tripod next to them

* There was no evidence of the boy actually being hit

* At one point, people in the crowd cried out that the boy was dead, while he was sitting up large as life clinging onto his father with his mouth wide open

* After he was said to be dead, he moved his arm (the sequence I have already reported which has been available on the web for years).

The ‘killing’ of Mohammed al Durah was swallowed uncritically by the western media, despite the manifold unlikeliness and contradictions which were apparent from the start, because it accorded with the murderous prejudice against Israel which is the prism through which the Middle East conflict is habitually refracted. This scandal has the most profound implications not just for the media, not just for the Middle East conflict but for the western world’s relationship to reason, which seems to grow more tenuous by the day.

Israeli Government Officially Confirms Al-Dura Footage was Staged Blood Libel Against IDF

We all knew it. And the Jew-hating Muslim thugs knew it too. Now the mask is off. From Shurat HaDin Israel Law Center:

In response to a warning letter sent by Shurat HaDin to the Israeli Government Press Office (GPO) more than 9 months ago, GPO Director Danny Seaman has written a formal acknowledgment that FRANCE 2 Television staged the infamous news footage depicting a Palestinian child being shot to death by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in September 2000. This is the first time in the seven years since the footage broadcast that the Prime Minister's Office has confirmed that a journalistic fraud had been perpetrated against the IDF by government owned FRANCE 2 television.

Shurat HaDin had written Seaman contending that mounting evidence proved that cameramen and news editors from FRANCE 2 had deliberately staged and then misleadingly edited the footage aired by the French government television on in September 2000. The emotional footage, repeatedly broadcast around the world on CNN and other cable stations, ignited anti-Israeli violence in the Palestinian Authority and Israeli Arab communities and spurred international condemnation of the IDF. The Palestinian youth Muhammad al-Dura, allegedly seen being killed in the video footage, became the poster child in the Arab world for the current intifada violence and fueled hundreds of terror attacks against Israeli citizens and Jewish communities worldwide. Thousands of Jews and Arabs have been killed in the ensuing violence following the broadcast.

The Shurat HaDin letter demanded that, in light of the fraudulent broadcast and the grievous harm that it unleashed against Israel as well as the massive numbers of victims attributable to the fake footage, Seaman must strip FRANCE 2 of its press credentials.

Although Seaman stopped short of agreeing to remove FRANCE 2's accreditations his response letter to Shurat HaDin confirms that the Prime Minister's Office firmly believes that the footage was deliberately staged to misrepresent that the IDF killed al-Dura when in fact a forensic investigation has concluded that Israel could not possibly have been responsible. As Seaman writes:

"Without any deep and serious investigation, the global media convicted the State of Israel in the murder of a little boy, and his image remained tattooed and engraved in the collective Arab memory as a symbol for the cruelty of the Zionist nation. These allegations started a long road that leaded to exposing the truth and basing the fact that Talal Abu Rahma, the network’s Palestinian cameraman, engaged in the systematic staging of action scenes . . . This libel incited the Arab world and caused many victims in and outside of Israel."

Seaman's letter then states that despite this confirmed journalistic libel the GPO will not seek to have FRANCE 2's credentials revoked.

It is the intention now of Shurat HaDin to file a petition in the High Court of Justice against the GPO and FRANCE 2 compelling the government to remove FRANCE 2 credentials and prohibit them from manufacturing further anti-Israel propaganda pieces.

According to Shurat HaDin Director Nitsana Darshan-Leitner: "This modern-day blood libel directly resulted in hundreds of Jewish and Arab deaths and ignited a still-flaming torch of international hatred, only for the sake of raising FRANCE 2's ratings. This was perhaps the greatest journalistic hoax perpetrated in the last hundred years. We demand that those who are responsible for this crime will bare the consequences of their actions. The State of Israel cannot simply allow FRANCE 2 to remain in this country."

Moreover, activist Philippe Karsenty has led a long battle inside of Frcnce against FRANCE 2 seeking to determine whether the Al-Dura footage had been staged. Last week in an historic victory for Philippe Karsenty, a French Court hearing an appeal of his case centering on the Al-Dura allegations ordered that all of the raw video footage shot by the camera crew be released to determine if a deliberate news hoax had been perpetrated.

Shurat HaDin – Israel Law Center is a long overdue Jewish legal rights institute based in Israel. Staffed by some of the country’s leading activist attorneys, we are dedicated to providing legal representation and resources for the numerous courtroom struggles, which are being waged in the Israeli, American and European courts on behalf of the Jewish State. We serve as a central clearinghouse and litigation base for the multifarious legal battles that have been thrust upon Israel’s citizens during these dark days.

Contact Us: info@israellawcenter.org

Watch the video below and see for yourself.

French Judge Orders Court Screening of Al-Dura Video Footage

From French Judge Orders Court Screening of Al-Dura Video Footage:

An appeals court judge in Paris ordered France 2 TV to show the court 25 minutes of raw video footage shot on Sept. 30, 2000, in Gaza in which the Palestinian boy Mohammed al-Dura apparently was shot and killed in an exchange of gunfire between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian militants. Al-Dura's shooting death became an icon for Palestinian suffering, but the Israeli army concluded after an investigation that the boy could not possibly have been hit by Israeli bullets. When Philippe Karsenty, director of the media watchdog group Media-Ratings, called France 2's exclusive video of the incident "a hoax," he was found guilty of slander. He appealed the decision, and on Wednesday the appeals judge ordered that the video be released. Several French and U.S. journalists who have seen the raw footage have indicated the shooting might have been staged by Palestinians.

France2: Release the Secret Muhammad al Durah Tapes!

The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has strongly commended, and supports the Israel Defense Forces' (IDF) demand of the France-2 television network that it release the full 27 minutes of footage of the alleged killing of the Palestinian boy, Muhammad al-Durah, on September 30 2000. The deputy commander of the IDF's Spokesman's Office, Col. Shlomi Am-Shalom, has submitted a letter to France-2's Jerusalem Bureau chief in Israel, Charles Enderlin, regarding Enderlin's story from September 30, 2000, in which 55 seconds of edited footage from the Netzarim junction filmed by a local Palestinian cameraman working for France-2, Tala Abu Rahma, purporting to show IDF forces shooting and killing al-Dura, was aired by France-2. Enderlin's story, which France-2 provided free of charge to the rest of the international media, led to world-wide accusations against Israel that the boy had been deliberately killed by the IDF during a shoot out with Palestinian Authority (PA) forces.

A French journalist, Philippe Karsenty, the editor of Media-Ratings, www.m-r.fr, an internet service that monitors the French media, is going to court in Paris on Wednesday, September 19 to appeal a judgment for defamation brought against him by France-2 television for questioning Enderlin's veracity and challenging him to explain obvious defects and inconsistencies in the al-Durah story. Part of the reason for the original judgment going against Karsenty cited by the court was the absence of an official complaint from Israel or the IDF regarding the veracity of the France-2 story. However, as early as November 2000, investigations on behalf of the IDF's Southern Command proved mathematically and physically that the IDF forces on the ground could not see al-Durah from their position and that it was physically impossible for their bullets to have killed him.

Respected media organizations like the Wall Street Journal, CBS News, Atlantic Monthly and Commentary magazine have all published detailed investigations that all concluded that the France-2 footage was either staged or simply edited to show something that did not happen, while an October 2002 German television documentary film by Esther Schapira, Three Bullets and a Dead Child: Who Shot Muhammad al-Durah? also concluded that IDF bullets could not have killed al-Durah. The ZOA has released a full discussion of the issues and called upon France-2 to release the full, never before publicly broadcast, 27 minutes of footage surrounding the incident in order to clarify whether the boy's alleged killing was a staged Palestinian propaganda incident.

* * *

The Zionist Organization of America, founded in 1897, is the oldest pro-Israel organization in the United States. The ZOA works to strengthen U.S.-Israel relations, educates the American public and Congress about the dangers that Israel faces, and combats anti-Israel bias in the media and on college campuses. Its past presidents have included Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis and Rabbi Dr. Abba Hillel Silver.

Nous accusons!

Excerpted from Melanie Phillips:

Tomorrow, [Update: legal argument took place on September 12 while the full hearing is now scheduled to start on September 19, 2007. ] an appeal starts in Paris in a case which encapsulates all that is most rotten and murderous about the media war against Israel and its truly monstrous consequences. At the beginning of the second intifada, an event occurred which more than any other was to incite mass hysteria against Israel, lead directly to the terrorist murder of Jews and whip up demonstrations and incitement against Israel and the west throughout the Arab and Muslim world. On September 30, 2000 viewers around the world watched a short news clip screened by the TV station France 2 which appeared to show the killing by the Israel Defence Force of a Palestinian boy, Muhammad al-Dura, at Netzarim junction in Gaza. The boy was shown crouching with his father behind a barrel next to a concrete wall in an apparently vain attempt to shelter from the gun-battle between Israel and the Palestinians that was raging around them. In his commentary on the incident France 2's Israel correspondent, Charles Enderlin, declared that the IDF had killed the boy.

This footage become the iconic image of the intifada and the Palestinian 'struggle' against Israel. It served to incite terrorist violence and atrocities as well as inflaming hatred of Israel around the world. It was used in Palestinian educational materials to incite other children to turn themselves into human bombs. It was used repeatedly in al Qaeda's videotape of the beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in 2002. Itwas used to whip Iraqi Republican Guards into a frenzy before the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. And most stomach-churning of all, it was invoked by the Palestinian mob in Ramallah that lynched IDF reservists YosefAvrahami and Vadim Novesche, who had taken a wrong turning, two weeks after the alleged al Durah killing.

The consequences of their fatal error are well known: they were tortured and beaten to death in the Palestinian Authority police station, and their lifeless bodies thrown out of the station's second story window to a throngof men howling, Allahu Akbar -God is great! They commenced to dismember and disembowel the soldiers' corpses, and then passed the entrails on a platter to a hysterical mob numbering in the thousands who rejoiced as they literally chewed and swallowed the remains of their hated Jews. What is lesser known is that while eating the flesh and blood of their victims, in satisfaction and triumph, the good citizens of Ramallah chanted, not only, Allahu-Akbar- but the name of Mohamed al Durah!But it quickly became apparent that the IDF could not have killed al Durah. Initially, the Israeli government had taken responsibility for his death, but it later concluded that the whole thing was a fraud because it wasphysically impossible for the IDF to have shot at the al Duras from their position that day at the Netzarim junction. Several other independent commentators came to the same conclusion, including extensive investigations by the French-language Israeli news agency MENA, a German television documentary film by Esther Schapira called Three Bullets and a Dead Child: Who Shot Muhammad al-Dura? and the Atlantic Monthly; while Richard Landes, a Boston University historian, who has claimed on his blog, Augean Stables, his website, The Second Draft, and in three films-Pallywood, The Birth of an Icon, and Icon of Hatred-that the al Dura 'killing' was staged.

On November 24, 2004, Philippe Karsenty, founder of the French online media watchdog, Media Ratings, sent out an email to his subscribers in which he accused the France 2 television network of staging the al Durah 'killing'. He called for the resignation of both Charles Enderlin and France 2's News Director, Arlette Chabot, for their role in promulgating the alleged hoax. France 2 and Enderlin sued Karsenty for defamation, and won. Tomorrow sees the opening of Karsenty's appeal. The behaviour to date of both the French judges and France 2 has been simply outrageous.

The footage in question was filmed by a Palestinian cameraman, Talal abu Rahma. France 2 is holding 27 minutes of raw footage of his film which it refuses to release. Independent investigators have repeatedly asked it to do so. It refuses point blank. Why? Since transmitted parts of this footage, why does it refuse to release the rest of it? The most likely reason is that the unscreened footage proves that the 'killing' was indeed nothing of the kind.

Click here to read the full article.

Today in Jewish History - Elul 16

Sponsored by Aish.com:

In 1903, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a forgery purporting to be the conspiratorial discussions of Jewish leaders plotting to take over the world, appeared for the first time as a serial in the Russian newspaper, Znamia. Protocols gained popularity in anti-Semitic circles, and it was -- next to the Bible -- the best-selling book in the world during the 1920s. In the United States, Henry Ford sponsored its publication. Protocols became a mainstay of Nazi propaganda, and in Mein Kampf Hitler presents it as proof of the alleged "Jewish conspiracy" for which the persecution of Jews is necessary as self-defense. Over the years, dozens of scholars have proved Protocols to be a forgery; it was most likely written by a spy working for the Russian secret police. In recent years, "Protocols" has been widely distributed in the Arab Muslim world.

Today in Jewish History - Tammuz 11

Sponsored by Aish.com:

Yahrtzeit of Alfred Dreyfus, a French army officer who was falsely arrested and charged with treason. Dreyfus was the victim of a frame-up; falsified documents were exposed in a famous open letter entitled J'accuse! (I Accuse!). This scandal, which came to be known as the Dreyfus Affair, bitterly divided French society for many years. Dreyfus was stripped of his rank and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil's Island. (Five years later, he was released and later pardoned.) Theodor Herzl, a Jewish journalist reporting on the trial, was so affected by the anti-Semitism and injustice, that he committed his life to vigorously pursuing the cause of Zionism.

Today in Jewish History - Tammuz 8

Sponsored by Aish.com:

In 1840, U.S. President Martin Van Buren protested the Damascus blood libel, in which Syrian Jews were charged with killing two men and using their blood to make Passover matzah. Father Thomas of Damascus (and his Muslim assistant) had disappeared, prompting a blood libel that led to the arrest and torture of 13 Jews. More arrests and atrocities followed, culminating in the kidnapping of 63 Jewish children (compelling them to "reveal" where the blood was hidden), and mob attacks on Jewish communities throughout the Middle East. In England, Jewish leaders Montefiore and Rothschild sought government intervention. In the U.S., Van Buren ordered American diplomats in Turkey and Egypt to lodge an official protest, while thousands of Jews protested in six American cities -- historically the first collective action by American Jews on behalf of their overseas brethren. Bowing to pressure, Syrian officials agreed to release those Jews who had survived the numerous rounds of torture. The story never completely disappeared, and in 1986 Syrian Defense Minister Mustafa Tlass published a book, The Matzah of Zion, reviving this libel against the Jews.

Today in Jewish History - Tammuz 5

Sponsored by Aish.com:

In 1946, Jewish refugees from the Holocaust, with no other place to go, returned to their hometown of Kielce, Poland -- and were attacked by the townspeople in a bloody pogrom that left 42 Jews dead and 80 wounded. The pogrom began when rumors spread that Jews had kidnapped a Polish child. Polish policemen and soldiers entered the Jewish residences and began the violence; the Jews were then attacked outside by mobs in a fray that lasted five hours. Some 3 million Polish Jews had been murdered in the Holocaust, yet this pogrom -- occurring 15 months after the end of World War II -- was a horrific aftershock.

Israeli Arabs big consumers of Matza

Odd. Don't they know that we bake matzah with the blood of Christians? From Israeli Arabs Big Consumers of Matza:

During the Passover season, the Israeli Arab public regularly consumes large quantities of matza. A journalist associated with the Islamic Movement in Israel said he also bought matza. "The kids can't get enough of it. They eat it like crackers." A man from Baka al-Garbiyeh said his children and wife preferred to eat matza with a spread of jam or chocolate.

The New Blood Libel

From The New Blood Libel:

The alleged bloodthirst among the Jews is a classic anti-Semitic myth, known as the blood libel, that has been used over the years to justify the actual killing of many actual Jews. Here's the two-time Pulitzer-winner, Nicholas Kristof, in Sunday's New York Times: "B'Tselem...reports that last year Palestinians killed 17 Israeli civilians...and six Israeli soldiers. In the same period, B'Tselem said, Israeli forces killed 660 Palestinians."

Aside from the fact that Israel was being attacked by the Palestinians after withdrawing to the 1967 borders of the Gaza Strip, here's some context that Kristof left out. B'Tselem is funded by German church groups, the governments of Switzerland and the EU, and the same Ford Foundation that underwrote the anti-Israel agitation that preceded the UN's Durban conference.

Moreover, the statistics Kristof cites don't include Israelis killed by other Arab terrorists working in league with the Palestinian Arabs and funded by the same Iranian terror master. In 2006, that included 43 Israeli civilians and 117 Israeli soldiers who were killed in the war with Lebanese-based Hizbullah.

The B'Tselem statistics do include - but Kristof omits - the 55 Palestinian Arabs killed in 2006 by other Palestinian Arabs. Nor does Kristof's selective use of statistics include the Americans and others who were killed by Palestinian Arab terrorists, such as Daniel Wultz, 16, from Florida who was slain in a 2006 suicide attack in Tel Aviv.

The fact is that he writes at a time when a war against the Jews is underway. It is a war in which the American people have stood with Israel for three generations. The reason is that Americans are wise enough to understand which side in the war against the Jews shares our values - and to sort out the truth from the libels.

Libyan Media: Bulgarian, Israeli intelligence behind HIV plot

Fron Axis:

Bulgarian secret services and the Israeli intelligence Mossad are involved in the infecting on more than 400 Libyan children with HIV in a hospital in the town of Benghazi in the late 1990s, the Libyan daily Ash Shams claims in its online edition. According to an article there, it was expected that Bulgaria and the European Union will try to exculpate the unheard crime with talks for human rights. According to the daily the problem is not linked to the nationality of the defendants. There should be people punished for this suffering, the daily comments. The newspaper's editor-in-chief went as far as to tell the Al-Jazeera TV channel that he can pad out the reports with evidence.

Bar-Ilan University Statement on Professor Ariel Toaff's research regarding blood libels

(Communicated by the Bar-Ilan University Spokesman)

Following is a statement by Bar-Ilan University Spokesman Shmuel Algarbali:

"Professor Ariel Toaff is among Israel's and the world's senior researchers in medieval Jewish communities and the Italian Jewish community. Bar-Ilan University ( www.biu.ac.il/index_eng.shtml ) - like other universities - champions freedom of academic and scientific expression as the basis for its research activity.

However, Bar-Ilan University expresses its strongest reservations over reports in the media
regarding Prof. Toaff's latest research regarding blood libels against European Jews in the Middle Ages. Bar-Ilan University - its officers and researchers - have condemned, and condemn, any attempt to justify the awful blood libels against Jews.

According to the principles of academic research and in order to prevent the dissemination of false accusations, the Bar-Ilan University management believes that it would be proper to wait until the research itself and explanations from Prof. Toaff are received before taking up the issue. As of yet, there has been no contact with Prof. Toaff, who is traveling abroad. Immediately upon his return to the country in the coming days, Bar-Ilan University President Prof. Moshe Kaveh will summon Prof. Toaff and ask from him explanations regarding his research. Until then, we believe that we should refrain from relying on baseless reports that have been denied by Prof. Toaff himself and which, apparently, lack any connection to the research itself. Bar-Ilan University calls on all elements dealing with the matter to wait for precise information, which Prof. Toaff will provide to the University administration in the coming days."

For further details, please contact Bar-Ilan University Spokesman Shmuel Algarbali at 03-5318121, 050-7401016, 03-6106666 #1781 or spokesman.office@mail.biu.ac.il.

'Jews never committed Ritual Murders'

Via Jerusalem Post:

Ariel Toaff, the author of Bloody Passovers: The Jews of Europe and Ritual Murders feels as if he had been excommunicated.

A rabbinical press release was issued against the contents of his book even before anyone had read it, based on a review that appeared in the Corriere della Sera, which attributed Toaff - an Israeli historian of Italian origin who heads Bar Ilan University 's Medieval and Renaissance History Department - with attempting to prove the validity of some medieval "blood libels."

Toaff feels like he had been pushed into a corner. None of his old friends have called him at his Rome hotel during the entire week of his stay here. He has been dismissed as editor of the
Zohar historical review, and is concerned he might lose his university position in Israel as well.

According to Bar-Ilan spokesman Shmuel Algrabali, the university "expresses its strongest reservations" over media reports claiming the book states that the notorious "blood libels" against Jews might have basis in fact.

"Bar-Ilan University has condemned and will continue to condemn any attempt to justify the awful blood libels against Jews," the spokesman said. However, he defended the right of the professor to express his views and said the university would withhold judgment on the book until Toaff returns from his trip abroad.

He has been prevented from seeing or even contacting his father, Elio Toaff, Rome's former chief rabbi who led the community for many years during, among other things, the terrorist attack on the main synagogue in 1982 and the hosting of John Paul II's historic visit in 1986.

According to Toaff, it was Sergio Luzzatto's contentious review, solicited by Il Mulino
publishers, and not his book itself that sparked the controversy. "I have been conducting research on this topic for six years with my students at Bar Ilan University without any problems," Toaff told The Jerusalem Post.

However, Toaff admitted that he did not foresee the impact his book would have on a society which, he claims, is facing a major problem in the face of resurgent anti-Semitism. "Perhaps my book should have been aimed at an Israeli public where there is less risk of misunderstandings and of a misuse of my findings."

Speaking to the Post, Toaff replies with a defiant "No" to the question of whether he believes Jewish communities could have committed ritual murder.

His previous statement had been an ironic academic provocation, he said - a premise for breaking the taboo of academic research into the anti-Christian atmosphere in Ashkenazi European Jewish communities of the Middle Ages.

According to Toaff, this atmosphere was an understandable aftermath of the Crusades, the massacres of Jews and the mass suicides of Jewish families who preferred death to conversions
forced on them by fanatic Christians. However, he feels it played a role in the recurrent traumatic events which saw Jews as victims.

What he contests are the foregone conclusions by historians, who claim that all statements made by Jews under torture were dictated by their tormentors and therefore untrue. In the medieval trial documents he found statements in Yiddish formerly ignored by investigators, which, he holds, provide additional keys for interpretation and understanding of the times.

The first edition of 1,000 copies was sold out in one day, and the second edition has already been printed. But, Toaff maintained, he does not want to accept any money for this book and is seeking to hold off on further reprints for now. He has also refused offers for high profile Italian TV appearances because "I don't want to encourage anti-Semitic exploitation of my research."

The Italian press has been hosting daily articles on the topic to which the book's title alludes: ritual murder, or the blood accusation, which has throughout the centuries served as an
alibi for pogroms and massacres of Jews as well as food for rabid anti-Semitic rhetoric in Muslim countries and neo-Nazi movements today.

Catholic and Jewish historians and journalists have either praised Toaff for his "courageous"
forays into rarely discussed aspects of medieval Jewish life such as superstitions, including the use of blood for medical or ritual needs (despite the official taboos), or they have angrily accused him of a lack of historical discernment and responsibly for fomenting anti-Semitic stereotypes.

On his first day in Rome, Prof. Toaff was quoted as saying that some ritual murders
"might have taken place." This, together with Sergio Luzzatto's review triggered an indignant flood of replies.

Some particularly cogent discrediting of Toaff's book came from Catholic historians who, after the Vatican II 1965 Nostra Aetate document on Catholic-Jewish reconciliation, oversaw the scholarly research and campaign that led to the removal of the cult of Saint Simonino -
the Christian child allegedly murdered by Jews in Trent to use his blood for making Passover Matzot in 1475. Sixteen members of the Trent Jewish Community were then sentenced to hanging after confessions were extracted through use of excruciating torture.

blah..blah...matzo....blah...blah...blood libel...

From MEMRI TV:

Lebanese Poet Marwan Chamoun: Jews Slaughtered Christian Priest in Damascus in 1840 and Used His Blood for Matzos

The following are excerpts from an interview with Lebanese poet Marwan Chamoun, which aired on TeleLiban TV on January 30, 2007.

To view this clip visit here.

Marwan Chamoun: "How many of us Lebanese, or even Arabs, know anything about the Talmud? Or about the book, Exposing the Talmud? Or about the book, Pawns on the Chessboard? Or about another book, The Secret World Government? Or about Exposing the Talmud? Or about Blood for the Matzah of Zion, [which deals with] the slaughter of the priest Tomaso de Camangiano, who was a Sicilian with French citizenship, in the days of Muhammad Ali Pasha, in 1840..."

[...]

"[Former Syrian] Minister Mustafa Tlass wrote a voluminous book about this, in which he included all the documents written by the French diplomats and consul in Lebanon."

[...]

"The world loves the Jews. The 'ruler' is Christianity - the Christian West. Arabs, Muslims - why don't you take advantage of something like this? A priest was slaughtered in the presence of two rabbis in the heart of Damascus, in the home of a close friend of this priest, Daud Al-Harari, the head of the Jewish community of Damascus. After he was slaughtered, his blood was collected, and the two rabbis took it. Why? So they could worship their god, because by drinking human blood, they can get closer to God. Where are our diplomats and politicians? Why don't we profit from these historical matters, which are presented to us on a simple, eternal, golden
platter?

"As I've said, these books can be found on the streets of Beirut. There are approximately 20 to 30 such books. I must have bought about 2,000 copies since they were published, maybe more. I'd like to say 20,000 copies, but I don't know. When somebody gets married, instead of chocolates, I give him one of these books. Whoever reads this for the first time feels a chill of horror and disbelief. He cannot believe it."

Ukrainian MP slams sale of antisemitic publications

Ukrainian Jewish lawmaker Alexander Feldman called on the authorities to stop the sale of antisemitic literature, such as the notorious tsarist-era forgery, “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” in the country’s parliament, the Russian Jewish web site Jewish.ru reported earlier this month. Feldman charged that the publications got into the parliament illegally, due to pressures exerted by “some lawmakers.” He said he would raise the issue at an upcoming parliamentary session and during a forthcoming visit to Ukraine of members of the European Parliament.

Jewish.ru also cited Feldman’s listing antisemitic titles sold in the parliamentary bookstore, including publications by the Interregional Academy of Personnel Management (MAUP), the country’s leading purveyor of antisemitic literature. The web site pointed out that in recent years, several members of the Ukrainian parliament have made public antisemitic statements, including glorification of anti-Jewish violence during the Holocaust and accusations that Jews were behind the famine of the 1930s that took the lives of millions of Ukrainians.