Rambling ...

I'm an Irish Girl, A Dubliner, with the 'Gift of the Gab' ... I like to talk & to tell you things. In Celtic times news, views and comment were carried from place to place by wandering Seanachaí ~ Storytellers ~ who relied on their host's hospitality and appreciation. I will need that from you too, as I venture to share Politics, Poetry, Laughter, Love, Life & everything in-between ... from Bog to Blog!!


Friday, May 27, 2011

Bravehearts & Book Bans !!




Is Scotland still living in the Shadow of the Shoah???   It would seem so with this week's decision to ban Israeli books.  A Scottish municipality has banned from its libraries books by Israeli authors and those that were printed or published in Israel.   The West Dunbartonshire Council, consisting of towns and villages west of Glasgow,  ordered new books by Israeli authors to be banned from the council's libraries. It isn't a surprise that this measure is so popular in Dunbartonshire. This area wildly supported Neville Chamberlain and his appeasement policy with Hitler. They ridiculed WInston Churchill when he opposed Hitler. Nothing has changed in Dunbartonshire all these years later it seems.   And, Ten other councils have apparently  agreed to join the boycott.  Is banning books by Jewish Authors next???

 The Scottish city of Dundee also issued a recommendation to boycott goods produced in Israel, but it was set aside after city legal advisers said it was likely illegal under European Union law. The city instead will distribute posters throughout the city asking its residents not to buy Israeli goods and place a special sticker on products that are made in Israel.  "Special treatment" for Jews????

"A place that boycotts books is not far from a place that burns them,"
Israel's ambassador to the U.K., Ron Prosor said on Tuesday.  European Jewish Congress President Moshe Kantor called the banning of Israeli books and the marking of Israeli products in Scotland  "eerily reminiscent of darker times, and perhaps there is a level of hatred that connects them.”

“While those behind the boycott will claim that this is not anti-Semitic, targeting the only Jewish state, a democracy, while ignoring serial human rights-abusing nations tells us that this is indeed anti-Semitic in intent and in effect,” Kantor said in a statement released on Tuesday too. “This demonstrates how far ‘respectable anti-Semitism’ has come. Clearly it has become acceptable to boycott and discriminate against Jews, as long as there is a thin veneer of anti-Zionism which purportedly covers the hateful act.”




Europe has a shameful history of burning of Jewish books. The first event in the Western world was ordered by Pope Gregory IX, who in 1239 consigned the Talmud to the flames. In Toulouse, the Catholic Inquisition burned the books of Rashi in 1319. In Venice 1,000 copies of the Talmud were destroyed in the fire.  Throughout the German spring of 1933, students, professors and librarians worked on a list of “degenerate” Jewish books. The list included Stefan Zweig, Erich Maria Remarque, Thomas Mann and Heinrich Heine, whose conversion to Christianity didn’t wipe off the stain of the Jew. In the largest event outside Berlin, 18,000 Jewish books were destroyed.   The orgiastic hatred against Israeli intellectualism has recently raised its ugly head in the placid Scotland, in the form of banning Israeli books from public libraries. A provincial council near Glasgow, West Dunbartonshire, where the trade union has already pursued a policy of boycotting Israel, will ban Israeli books from local libraries.  This is George Galloway's area!!!!!

A spokesman for West Dunbartonshire says that the ban will “only” affect books printed in Israel.   Scotland is part of the UK and as such is also responsible for the violation of the League of Nations Agreement regarding Palestine's borders.   During the Mandate the British usurped more than 70 percent of the Jewish land being returned to the Jews and gave it to the Arabs. 

Throughout Europe, there’s a river of oily, bloody money that feeds those who incite for anti-Jewish boycotts, while spreading anti-Israel lies under guise of “objective journalism” and “academic research.” There are careers to be made through the betrayal of intellectual standards and by making the Jewish State the object of an unremitting demonology.   Just a few examples .... The new pro-Hamas flotilla had its first conference in the building of the Journalists Association in Rome. In Oslo, hundreds of cultural figures just promoted the boycott of Israel. Indeed, it’s impossible to make an exhaustive list of the economic actions against Israel, with radical anti-Jewish venom spreading through the West.  The process of Israel’s de-legitimization, which began with the Soviets’ pathological assault on its legitimacy, has penetrated mainstream media and intellectual circles. The British Guardian ran an editorial titled “Israel Has No Right to Exist.” Last week, acclaimed Danish director Lars von Trier defined Israel “a pain in the ass."  He at the same time claimed to "understand" Hitler .... see last Friday's Blog!!!!




However, the Scottish decision marks the first time that a European region has been officially cleansed of the presence of Israeli books. Book burning and banning is aiming to cut off cultural transmission from generation to generation.  Anyone familiar with the history of books under the Holocaust can easily understand how abominable is Scottish decision is.    Remember too, that pro-Hamas ex-MP George Galloway is Scottish. Also Scotland released the bomber of "Lockerbie/Pan Am" to Libya too!!

But,  the judenrein libraries in Scotland are a new example of Heinrich Heine’s dictum that “where they burn books, in the end it is men that they will burn.”    This past winter, terrorists from Gaza launched phosphorous shells on Israeli civilians. These are chemical weapons able to burn the human skin. International newspapers and television stations didn’t report the news. Indeed, the burned skin of the Jews was never of much interest to the West. It's time for European intellectuals to stand for truth because the worst of all anti-Jewish persecutions, that of Hitler, almost marked the end of European history.  Now, the stage is set for it to  happen again & Scotland, of all the unlikely places is in the forefront of the assault.  

I'm a wondering too ..... are cellphones & computers & software programmes, anti-virus protections, USB connectors & many life prolonging medications also being banned as Israeli Inventions ?????  Or does Hypocrisy reign supreme in the land of  'the brave' ???

But, Ha'Shem has not developed Myopic Vision ..... Scotland has also been assailed with a plume of ash from an Icelandic erupting Volcano which grounded all flights in Scotland for almost a week now.  Storms of unpreceedented severity (especially in Summer) have hit this week too.  These events have cost the country several millions in lost revenue.  Tsumnamis, Earthquakes, Hurricanes, Tornado's or a nuclear disaster have hit countries that have employed anti-Israeli measures this year.   Seems to be happening to all the anti-Semitic countries right now, this year, this month, this week!!  I would not swap my Irish slippers for Scottish shoes right now!

 As a Gael, I love Scotland.  It is a Special place to visit & to love.  But, as a Jew I ask .... Where has Scotland the Brave gone???  Has it swapped it's specialness for anti Semitism ?????


2 comments:

  1. They can burn a book, but they can never burn the underlying IDEA.

    ReplyDelete
  2. So can we now assume that the Bible is outlawed in West Dunbartonshire?

    ReplyDelete