Free Republic

The civil rights leader Andrew Young, who was hired by Wal-Mart to improve its public image, resigned from that post last night after telling an African-American newspaper that Jewish, Arab and Korean shop owners had “ripped off” urban communities for years, “selling us stale bread, and bad meat and wilted vegetables.” In the interview, published yesterday in The Los Angeles Sentinel, a weekly, Mr. Young said that Wal-Mart “should” displace mom-and-pop stores in urban neighborhoods. “You see those are the people who have been overcharging us,” he said of the owners of the small stores, “and they sold out and...

In an interview, Young was asked whether he was concerned that Wal-Mart causes smaller, mom-and-pop stores to close. ``Well, I think they should; they ran the 'mom and pop' stores out of my neighborhood,'' the paper quoted Young as saying. ``But you see, those are the people who have been overcharging us, selling us stale bread and bad meat and wilted vegetables. And they sold out and moved to Florida. I think they've ripped off our communities enough. First it was Jews, then it was Koreans and now it's Arabs; very few black people own these stores.'' Young said he...

Within minutes of the airports being closed, angry emails arrived at our 'Comment Is Free' blog. 'Is it such a coincidence that this happens just when Zionists, UK and US are aiding and abetting mass murder in Lebanon?' asked one. 'Funny how these terrorist "threats" seem to knock other more important stories off the news agenda,' railed another. There was much more in the same vein. All shared the assumption that the Islamist 'threat' (always in scare quotes) is a phantom menace used by the government to distract the credulous masses from Lebanon, Iraq or wherever abroad and panic them...

<p>A Reuters employee has been suspended after sending a death threat to an American blogger.</p> <p>The message, sent from a Reuters internet account, read: "I look forward to the day when you pigs get your throats cut."</p> <p>It was sent to Charles Johnson, owner of the Little Green Footballs (LGF) weblog, a popular site which often backs Israel and highlights jihadist terrorist activities.</p>

What is the likelihood that the op-ed writer, or cartoonist, or university professor who rants about the evils of Zionism is really an old-fashioned Jew-hater? Much better than most of us thought, according to a study in the August 2006 issue of The Journal of Conflict Resolution. Goebbels was right. Repeat a lie often enough, and people will believe it. This seems to be true even in regard to Jews believing lies about themselves. For decades, so many of us heard pious protestations that strongly held views about Israel had nothing to do with attitudes towards us, that we started...

Anti-Semitism based on the notion of a Jewish world conspiracy is not rooted in Islamic tradition but, rather, in European ideological models. The decisive transfer of this ideology to the Muslim world took place between 1937 and 1945 under the impact of Nazi propaganda. Important to this process were the Arabic-language service broadcast by the German shortwave transmitter in Zeesen between 1939 and 1945, and the role of Haj Amin el-Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem, who was the first to translate European anti-Semitism into an Islamic context. Although Islamism is an independent, anti-Semitic, antimodern mass movement, its main early promoters...

Monday, May 15 marks the 58th anniversary of the creation of the apartheid state of Israel. Why preface it with the ugly “A” word? Because I believe that the state of Israel, with its racist policies against the Palestinians and illegal occupation of their land, is an apartheid state. Since 1906, when the Zionist congress decided to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine, Zionist forces, first underground terrorist militias like the Haganah and Igron and then Israel’s Occupational Forces, have attempted to systematically annihilate Palestinians, and drive them out of their land by oppression, torture and humiliation. The Palestinians have...

If the objective of the West was the destruction of Nazi Germany, it was a "smashing" success. But why destroy Hitler? If to liberate Germans, it was not worth it. After all, the Germans voted Hitler in. If it was to keep Hitler out of Western Europe, why declare war on him and draw him into Western Europe? If it was to keep Hitler out of Central and Eastern Europe, then, inevitably, Stalin would inherit Central and Eastern Europe. Was that worth fighting a world war – with 50 million dead?

The American journalist H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) once said: “The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one’s time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.” So, here we are, defending Ken Livingstone, the extreme-left London Mayor.

Ris-Orangis, France -- Flanked by a Baptist church and a Muslim cultural center, the slate-gray synagogue in this Paris suburb is a fragile beacon of religious tolerance. A poster hangs outside, announcing an interfaith concert. The unofficial headquarters of a 2-year-old Jewish-Muslim friendship association is located inside. But among Jews in Ris-Orangis and elsewhere in France, tolerance is a scarce commodity these days. Ever since a 23-year-old Jew named Ilan Halimi was dumped -- stabbed, handcuffed, naked and dying -- near a railway line outside Paris on Feb. 13, many Jews say anti-Semitism is resurging in France. "The Jewish community...

Holocaust denier deserves to be ignored, not thrown in prison Last winter, on a cold and black night, I went to hear the Holocaust denier David Irving speak at the University of Colorado. I arrived early to get a good seat and soon after me came five huge young men, all of them looking like skinheads. I glared at them, and they glared at me and for a moment I feared I was going to meet my maker. But it turned out that when Irving started to speak, the skinheads of my fertile imagination rose as one, unfurled an Israeli...

"Dhimmitude, or dementia" – take your pick – is how commentator Lawrence Auster lamented Patrick J. Buchanan's recent lapses. Mr. Buchanan has come out against the Danes for their finger-in-the-dyke bravery in the face of Islamic bullies – and for foreign aid for Hamas for their election victory in the Palestinian Authority. Before Hamas came to power, Buchanan had been a principled opponent of foreign aid, rightly calling it a racket and a shakedown. But Hamas, a deeply and indelibly anti-Semitic terrorist outfit, changed that. In a positively bacchanalian column, Buchanan exalts Hamas for its "sacrifice" and dedication, and mocks...

Let me preface the main point of this column by saying I like Pat Buchanan. I have always liked Pat Buchanan. I have always considered him to be a thoughtful, moral man. I voted for Pat Buchanan in his failed 1992 primary bid against President Bush. I have defended Pat Buchanan against charges that he was an anti-Semite. I have tried to reason with Pat Buchanan over the one critical area of disagreement between us – Israel and the Middle East. I once had the notion of putting together a fact-finding trip to the Middle East for Pat Buchanan, certain...

That demagogues and agitators are exploiting those cartoons of Muhammad to advance a war of civilizations and expel Europeans from the Middle East seems undeniable. But that does not excuse the paralyzing stupidity of that Danish paper in running those cartoons – or the arrogant irresponsibility of European newspapers in plastering those cartoons all over their front pages. The storm first broke last September, when Jyllands-Posten published 12 caricatures of Muhammad, including a lampoon of the prophet with a terrorist bomb as a turban. In the Islamic faith, any depiction of the face of Muhammad is forbidden. The Danish paper...

Buchanan defends foreign aid – for Hamas-------------------------------------------------------- Posted: February 1, 2006 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2006 Creators Syndicate Inc. Ever since President Bush, sometime after 9-11, converted to neoconservatism, his Middle East policy has suffered from the triple defects of that subspecies of the Right: hubris, ideology and immaturity. Neoconservatives see the world as they wish it to be, not as it is. Like teenagers, they act on impulse and rail against the counsel of experience. "Often clever, never wise," Russell Kirk said of the breed. Repeatedly, Bush was warned by traditional conservatives that to send a U.S. army to...

A committee appointed by the British government, composed of Muslims, wants the nation to scrap its Holocaust Memorial Day, in the name of inclusiveness and sensitivity. No word yet on whether they also want to eliminate Passover – said to be insensitive to Egyptians. The committee recommends replacing the observance (started in 2001 and held annually on January 27) with a Genocide (a.k.a., Victimhood) Day, which would recognize the alleged mass murder of Muslims in "Palestine," Chechnya, Bosnia, and wherever else followers of the Religion of Peace have come into conflict with the accursed infidel. In making its case for...

A reader has sent me the following deeply disturbing account of the current atmosphere on a British law course: 'I must say it's been an eye-opener for me regarding the level of antizionism/antisemitism I have encountered from the people on the course, many of whom have training contracts and will go into practice as the next generation of lawyers. Upon realising the hostility I decided not to tell anyone that I was Jewish. 'One day, at the end of a workshop, someone raised the issue that an Israeli soldier was in the headlines for shooting a Palestinian boy. Three other...

In reaction to a new film on academic bias and harassment of Israel-sympathetic students at Columbia University, the school's president, Lee C. Bollinger, has decided to have the charges raised by the documentary investigated. The short video, which shows students describing instances of intimidation and hostility by faculty members of the Department of Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures, is the latest in a series of efforts by students and some Columbia community members to get the word out that the school has a problem of anti-Israel bias. They allege that the school's Middle East classes are unbalanced and...