Schlagwort: Greece

Clemens Heni

Greece and Israel just signed a “deal” to be probably enacted as early as late March 2021 to ONLY allow passengers who are vaccinated against a new or not so new virus – SARS-CoV-2 – to travel via aircraft with no restrictions.

Read: people who for medical, philosophical or political reasons are not vaccinated against a flu-like illness are no longer allowed to travel abroad without taking the risk of been immediately imprisoned in a quarantine-like hotel. Imagine! If you are 23 or 51 or 67 and want to travel to Greece, and you are not sick at all, irrational politicians and the border police will treat you as if you were an infectious monster. Imagine! That is what happens ever since March 2020. And such “deals” will make this the “new normal” of the anti-democratic monster Angela Merkel.

Some 66 percent of American nurses and elderly home staff in Florida reject to be vaccinated. They know that most of them are not threatened by that virus and they know that the vaccination is not done properly, as a real vaccine takes several years to be developed. Even if that percentage drops to 10 percent (as the linked article predicts), still, these 10 percent of people, perhaps some Israeli among them, would never ever be allowed to again travel freely to the Jewish state, at least not to Israel and then to relatives or friends in Greece.

The core aspect, though, is the following: A democracy may never ever allow a political tool like a politically motivated vaccination to be implemented for restrictions of the freedoms of the people. Vaccination against a flu-like virus is a political tool, not a medical tool. Every individual can say yes or no to vaccination, of course. But it may never ever be mandatory to have the usual freedoms to travel wherever we want to go.

There will never ever be 100 percent of vaccinated people, regardless if we talk about Corona or Influenza (kids and young people are truly threatened by Influenza, not by Corona) or any other virus or disease. Never ever will there be a 100 percent rate. But there has to be 100 percent freedom and 100 percent equal rights for every single individual, at least in a democracy.

The infection fatality rate in Germany in 1970 was 0.29 percent during a severe epidemic, the Hongkong Flu. No one took notice at the time. No drama nowhere, such is life, no lockdown, no masks, no a-social distancing, nothing.

Worldwide, Corona has an infection fatality rate of 0.23 percent, says the World Health Organization.

Again, for those who never ever studied democracy: if a country starts differentiating between vaccinated and not vaccinated people that is the start of a totalitarian regime.

If you want to go for a 10 day holiday in Athens, and you are required to stay 10 days in quarantine, as the UK plans, too, you are lost in space. That would be the end of democracy, as the lockdowns already indicate the end of democracy. Politicians treat all of us as if we are sick, infectious and dangerous.

Never ever will all Israeli be vaccinated. Bibi does not want those who are not vaccinated to ever again leave Israel (for Greece or any other place) as free people.

That is what political science calls the “pandemic turn“.

Think about it.

About the Author

Dr Clemens Heni is director of The Berlin International Center for the Study of Antisemitism (BICSA)

Update, Febr 14, 2021:

Israeli journalist Richard Chaim Schneider embraces Corona restrictions and describes how he came back to Israel via aircraft, how completely (!) digitalized and controlled Israeli society works, and how happy he is about the vaccination program in Israel. Not a single word indicates that he started thinking by himself ever since March 2020, if such measures, quarantine for HEALTHY people, closures of borders for people with no negative PCR-test etc. are democratic or totalitarian in nature.

As if a PCR test is reliable, even the WHO most recently urges governments to only use a PCR test when the Ct value is indicated (and all Ct values above 26 or maximum 30 mean that the test is negative, even if it says „positive“), the WHO also urges politicians to implement the obligatory visit of a physician by every person who is tested postive by a PCR test. Without having seen a physician, no one may be classified as „sick“ or even „infectious“. Schneider seems to be ignoring these WHO recommendations.

Worse, Schneider – like most journalists worldwide – seems to have ignored almost 12 months of international debate among sceptical virologists, medical experts, historians, epidemiologists and social scientists. He neglects the political discussion about the threat deriving mainly from Corona politics and not from a relatively harmless virus (if one is not 85 years old and sick, with several comorbidities) – at least in his German article there is no indication that he ever dealt criticial with the panic driven Corona policies by Bibi or any other government, like Merkel’s, Johnson’s or Macron’s.

In recent decades, I often liked articles, books or films by Schneider, who’s writing has often been criticial of Bibi and the Far Right, authoritarianism and irrationalism, to be sure.

But in 2020/21, Schneider seems to be following the most irrational of all Israeli policies ever since the establishment of the State of Israel. Will the Israeli tourist industry, or the young businesswomen and -men survive this crisis?

Did he forget the writings of Michel Foucault or Ivan Illich, who had written about the dangerous bio-politics many decades ago, as if they anticipated this unprecedented crisis…

I came across this piece by Schneider via the mailinglist of I Like Israel and Sacha Stawski (ILI), a pro-Israel NGO from Germany. I fear, these kind of guys will never ever understand what a desaster Bibi’s Corona politics are for the international reputation of Zionism among those of us, who still follow rationalism and evidence based medicine, including the Great Barrington Declaration or the Israeli Common Sense Model by Israeli professors in medicine, epidemiology, microbiology, and other fields …

The obsession with technical solutions has long been a serious threat to Israel’s society – but most people seem to be enjoying surveillance technology and the end of any kind of privacy… I like Israel is also promoting the Greece-Israel deal I analyzed in this article. To ignore the collateral damage of Bibi’s Corona policies and to embrace the maniac vaccination program, including restrictions for not vaccinated people – as I like Israel does via their support of the truly totalitarian Greece Israel vaccination deal – all this is simply remarkable for people who always pretended to be rational, critical and open-minded, even fact-based.

Wer noch Lust hat auf ein Scherzle:

Kommt ein Patient in eine orthopädische Praxis. Fragt die technisch-medizinische Assistentin: „Haben Sie Halsschmerzen?“, „Nein“. „Haben Sie Fieber?“, „Nein“. „Haben Sie Husten?“, „Nein“. „Gut, dann schreiben wir ‚Corona‘, ’symptomlos‘.“

How not to prevent a second Holocaust

von Clemens Heni

am Mai 9, 2013

in Allgemein

Times of Israel, May 9, 2013

The fourth Global Forum for Combating Antisemitism, which is scheduled to be held in Jerusalem this month, is a very important international conference. Fighting anti-Semitism, hatred of Israel, Islamism, anti-Zionism, and the distortion of the Shoah are obviously extremely timely and significant topics, given the genocidal threats from Iran against Israel, the growing hostility toward the Jewish state in many countries in Europe, and throughout the Arab and large parts of the Moslem world, and the recent attempts to delegitimize the hereto-accepted narratives of World War II and the Holocaust throughout post-Communist eastern Europe.

Given the Forum’s significance and the fact that it was created and continues to be hosted by the Israeli Foreign Ministry, the question arises as to why Israel has invited ministers from countries known for promoting the distortion of the Holocaust and the canard of historical equivalency between Nazism and Communism to an event dedicated to fight anti-Semitism and prevent a possible ‘second Holocaust’? Are politicians or representatives of countries known for their efforts to whitewash their own pro-Nazi legacy allies in the fight against Holocaust denial and distortion of history? Some tiny and not powerful countries have learned to pay lip-service to Israel while promoting the above-mentioned Holocaust distortion in their own countries. This is currently the case in Hungary and Lithuania.

In December 2009 at the last meeting of the Global Forum I participated in the efforts to expose and condemn Lithuanian anti-Semitism. In a working group, Professor of Yiddish Dovid Katz and I, supported by British MP John Mann, criticized Lithuanian anti-Semitism and Holocaust distortion. Our words fell on deaf ears and we were shocked and chagrined when the featured guest speaker, the Foreign Minister of Lithuania, failed to address this issue at all, and whitewashed the serious problems his country faced in this regard.

Now, in May 2013, a representative of the Lithuanian government has again been invited as an honored guest to address the fourth Global Forum. Are there no other, more worthy, countries to invite, when it comes to fighting anti-Semitism and unfair criticism of Israel? Was our criticism in December 2009 completely useless?

After the program for this month’s conference was publicized, Efraim Zuroff, the director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Israel office, said senior government officials from Lithuania, Greece, Hungary and Ireland should not be allowed to attend – much less speak at – the Global Forum for Combating Antisemitism.

The opportunity to address the conference by visiting dignitaries should be a prize given to people who are leading the fight against anti-Semitism, and not to individuals representing countries in which the problem is among the worst in Europe, if not the worst.

This was not the first time that the well-known Nazi-hunter had drawn attention to this problem. In December 2009 Zuroff already criticized the invitation of the then Lithuanian Foreign Minister:

I am referring primarily to the invitation to Lithuanian Foreign Minister Vygaudas Usackas to participate as a special guest of the forum, but also to the presence there of two right-wing Hungarian politicians, Zsolt Semjen and Zoltan Balog, both of whom have made very negative comments about Hungarian Jews.

It is somehow both predictable and shocking that high-ranking representatives of these same countries, Lithuania and Hungary, are again slated to deliver speeches at the Global Forum for Combating Antisemitism. They will, of course, not deal with the failures of their own countries since 2009. They will not apologize for a reburial – replete with military honors – of a minister who served in the Nazi puppet government of Lithuania. Nor will they change their radical nationalist policies, including anti-Semitism, in both countries like the equation of red and brown (“Prague Declaration”) or the toleration of anti-Semitic and far-right parties like Jobbik in Hungary.

The same holds for Greece. Greek neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn was supported by Prime Minister Samaras and a member of that anti-Semitic party was elected by the Greek Parliament to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE). A Hungarian extreme right politician from Jobbik was also elected to that very EU body. In March 2013 anti-Semitic and anti-Roma, racist journalist Ferenc Szaniszlo was awarded a prestigious state-sponsored Hungarian award for journalists, the Táncsics prize, given under the auspices of Minister of “human resources.”

Why should Israel honor such countries and governments at an event dedicated solely to fighting anti-Semitism?

The Global Forum for Combating Antisemitism is probably the largest gathering of scholars, activists, politicians, philanthropists, citizens, bloggers, journalists and others in the pro-Israel and anti-anti-Semitism tent. But distortion of the Holocaust remains a key indicator for knowing who Israel’s true friends are, and who are its enemies. Ignoring this in 2013 is shortsighted and self-defeating, just as it was in 2009.

Distorting the first and preventing a second Holocaust?

von Clemens Heni

am Mai 2, 2013

in Allgemein

Troubling invitations spark controversies about the Global Forum in Jerusalem, to be held end of May 2013

by Dr. Clemens Heni

The Global Forum for Combating Antisemitism is a very important international conference. The first one was held in 2007, followed by two more events in 2008 and 2009. May 28-30, 2013, the fourth Global Forum will take place in Jerusalem. Fighting antisemitism, hatred of Israel, Islamism, anti-Zionism, and the distortion of the Shoah are tremendously timely and important topics.

Israel is a tiny country and the only one facing genocidal threats. Anti-Zionism is a religion in Europe and particularly in the Arab world, and parts of the Muslim world. Iran denies the Holocaust and agitates in a Nazi-style against Israel. Islamism is a huge threat on a worldwide level, but particularly in the Middle East, just look at Egypt and the Muslim Brotherhood, Turkey with the more veiled but influential, equally legal form of Islamism and Jihad (remember the Mavi Marmara) or Saudi-Arabia with its decades long spread of Islamist ideology via funding of extremist groups, mosques, cultural centers and the like. Qatar is home of one of the world’s leading Sunni Islamists, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who urges the Muslim world to fight Israel, who supports suicide bombing by unveiled females and who thanked Hitler for having punished the Jews. No one is criticizing or isolating Qatar for being host of that influential antisemite and his world-wide media network, including al-Jazeera.

Therefore, the Global Forum will be a very important gathering of those dedicated to fight Islamism, Muslim antisemitism, anti-Zionism and hatred of Israel in all its forms.

However, is it a good idea to invite someone to an event dedicated to fight antisemitism and a possible ‘second Holocaust’ who is known for distorting, veiling or even affirming the Holocaust? Are politicians or representatives of countries known for their efforts to whitewash their own pro-Nazi legacy allies in the fight against Holocaust denial and distortion of history? Is it a reflection and sign of a change in public relations to invite the very same country to the very same event four years later, again?

Some tiny and not powerful countries have learnt to pay lip-service to Israel while promoting the above mentioned Holocaust distortion in their own countries. This is the case in Hungary and Lithuania.

In December 2009 I was part of a struggle against Lithuanian antisemitism at the Global Forum for Combating Antisemitism, organized by the Israeli Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem. In a working group, Professor of Yiddish Dovid Katz and I, supported by British MP John Mann, criticized Lithuanian antisemitism and Holocaust distortion!

Now, in May 2013, the very same Lithuanian government will be invited to the fourth Global Forum. Are the representatives at the MfA just lazy and have no other countries in mind when it comes to Israel and antisemitism? Was our criticism in December 2009 completely useless?

Now, facing the next Global Forum end of May 2013 in Jerusalem, Efraim Zuroff, the director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Israel office, said senior government officials from Lithuania, Greece, Hungary and Ireland should not be allowed to attend — and speak at — the Global Forum for Combating Antisemitism. “The opportunity to address the conference by visiting dignitaries should be a prize given to people who are leading the fight against anti-Semitism, and not to individuals representing countries in which the problem is among the worst in Europe, if not the worst,”.

In December 2009 Zuroff already criticized the invitation of the then Lithuanian Foreign Minister:

“I am referring primarily to the invitation to Lithuanian Foreign Minister Vygaudas Usackas to participate as a special guest of the forum, but also to the presence there of two right-wing Hungarian politicians, Zsolt Semjen and Zoltan Balog, both of whom have made very negative comments about Hungarian Jews.“

Isn’t it predictable and also shocking, that these two countries, Lithuania and Hungary, are again supposed to deliver ridiculous speeches at the very same Global Forum for Combating Antisemitism? They will of course not deal with the failures of their own countries since 2009. They will not apologize for a reburial of a Nazi puppet minister in 2012 in Lithuania (with military honors). Nor will they change their radical nationalist policies, including antisemitism in both countries like the equation of red and brown (“Prague Declaration”) or the toleration if not support of antisemitic and far-right parties like Jobbik in Hungary. The same holds for Greece. Greek neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn was supported by Prime Minister Samaras and a member of that antisemitic party was elected by the Greek Parliament to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE). A Hungarian extreme right politician from Jobbik was elected to that very EU body, too. In March 2013 antisemitic and anti-Roma, racist journalist Ferenc Szaniszlo was awarded a state sponsored and most important Hungarian award for journalists, the Táncsics prize, given under the auspices of Minister of “human resources.”

Why should Israel honor such countries and governments at an event exclusively dedicated to the fight of antisemitism?

Nevertheless, computer expert and NGO activist Andre Oboler from Australia rejects Zuroff’s criticism and recently attacked the leading Nazi-hunter, historian and activist from the Simon Wiesenthal Center on his JPost blog for his criticism of this year’s Global Forum.

In addition, Oboler is the author of a brochure about antisemitism on Facebook. Of course it is important to deal with antisemitism, neo-Nazis, Holocaust denial and related issues on the leading social network. However, Oboler bases his text on British scholar, very influential book author and activist Richard Dawkins. Dawkins insists that there is no-free-will, everything is determined, biologically and/or culturally. For example, Dawkins created the term “Meme,” which in layman’s speak is a means for ideas to be transmitted via ‚cultural‘ genes from one generation to the next.

If one takes this idea one step further the notion of free will can no longer exist in such a Dawkensian world. One can only wonder what Dawkins would say about the Lithuanian Activist Front (LAF) and their active and self chosen involvement in the killing of Jews during the Shoah. Dawkins has sparked controversies about his aggressive new atheism, too and his friendship with animal rights activist Peter Singer, who endorses euthanasia, and says that a handicapped baby could be seen as a “non-person” and be killed, is highly troubling. Dawkins has talked about the (in his view: huge and dangerous) Jewish influence in American foreign policy, for example, and has agitated against Judaism.

The Global Forum for Combating Antisemitism, organized by the Israeli Foreign Ministry, and probably the biggest gathering of scholars, activists, politicians, philanthropists, citizens, bloggers, journalists and others in the pro-Israel and anti-antisemitism tent, should be a place to analyze and fight all forms of antisemitism.

Inviting countries who are known for their contribution to the distortion of history, for the antisemitic rewriting of the history of the Second World War, Nazi Germany and the Shoah, was a bad idea in 2009 and is a bad idea in 2013.

Of course Israeli diplomats are happy if a European or Western colleague is rather friendly and not outspokenly hostile to the Jewish state. However, we have to think twice. We cannot criticize one form of antisemitism (like anti-Zionism or Muslim antisemitism) while endorsing another form of antisemitism like Holocaust distortion, the equation of red and brown, the trivialization of the Holocaust and the promotion of the swastika as “cultural heritage” as is the case in Lithuania. No one who trivializes the Shoah can be considered a true friend of Israel and the Jews, regardless of his or her lip-service to the Jewish state.

Does the steering committee of the Global Forum, including Oboler, and the Israeli government really think that countries who distort the Shoah are among the best allies to prevent a ‘second Holocaust?’

Wissenschaft und Publizistik als Kritik