Jews, Judaism & Anti-Semitism

Jew! - Epithet with a Pedigree

This Jew Page
This Jew page is not intended to give a thorough explanation of the origins and history of the Jews, our nation or the Jewish faith. It is here to counteract hate materials about Jews that abound on the Internet, but it is not joke or filibuster. This is the truth about Jews.

Who is a Jew?
Jews are members or descendants of members of the Jewish faith or the Jewish people, that had a kingdom in ancient Judea and Israel and were then called Hebrews, Judeans or children of Israel (Bnei Yisrael). Jewish orthodox religious law recognizes anyone whose mother is Jewish as a Jew. Reform Jews also recognize as Jewish anyone whose father was a Jew. Israeli Law of Return recognizes anyone who had at least one Jewish grandparent, and who has not converted to a different faith, as a Jew. Non-Jews often use a much looser definition, so that even Jews who are are descendants of converts, like Karl Marx, or Benjamin Disraeli may be called a "Jew." The Nazi regime used a pseudo-scientific criterion of racial descent, so that a Jew with one Jewish parent was a "half Jew," a Jew with a Jewish grandparent was an eighth Jew.

A Jew may thus be a person, who believes in the Jewish faith, a person who identifies themselves as a member of the Jewish people, or a person defined by others as a Jew, or all any of the above in combination. Members of the Jewish faith believe that there is one God, who is omnipotent and indivisible, and with whom the Jews have a covenant, a special relationship of ethical and moral obligations and of protection. Jews do not allow any images of their God. The foundations of the Jewish faith are given in the The Old Testament Bible and in the later law books, particularly the Mishna, the Talmud and the Shulchan Aruch.

Origin of the word 'Jew'
The word Jew first appears in Middle English about 1000 A.C.E. and is probably derived from similar forms in Old French, such as giu and juieu. These in turn are probably from the Latin "Judeaus" which is the Latin form of the Hebrew word "Yehuda" - Judah, which was the name of one of the Jewish tribes and of the ancient Jewish kingdom. The word "Jew" or similar words, are used in many European languages, often as pejoratives. Thus, the more polite Russian word for "Jew" is evrei, while Zhid is the word used by Jew haters.

Becoming a Jew
The Jewish religion does not, as a rule, actively seek converts, but it is possible for a non-Jew to become a Jew -- convert to Judaism -- either following the stricter Orthodox rules, or the more lenient courses of study and preparation followed by Conservative, Reform or Reconstructionist Judaism. If you are curious about conversion, further information is at Converting to Judaism.

Jew Hate
The many meanings and overtones of the word "Jew" in English betray the history of racism and prejudice that has beset the Jewish people for about 2,000 years. "Don't Jew me down" and "Don't be such a Jew" are linguistic legacies that attest to the attitudes and the facts about Jew hate, not about Jews.

The Jew has been considered the epitome of evil in Western society for over 2,000 years. Anti-Semitism, the term used for Jew hate, was coined in the 19th century, but Jew hate originated before Christianity. Pagan authors insisted that the Jews worshipped a golden donkey in the temple. This myth was repeated by Tacitus. The fathers of the Christian church spread rumors that Jews engaged in cannibalism. One of these was quoted by Edward Gibbon in the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Jew-Hate has periodically erupted in violence, expulsions and religious persecution. Jews were expelled from Jerusalem in the time of the Romans, they were expelled from Spain several times, they were expelled from medieval Britain. During the rusades, the Jews of several German towns were murdered, and the Crusaders expelled the Jews from Jerusalem. Jews were treated better in Muslim countries, but they also underwent periodic persecution and forced conversions. As Arab and Muslim society declined, the position of the Jew declined in Muslim society. In the nineteenth century, many observers reported that it is customary for Muslim children to throw rocks at Jews. (see Jews in Arab Lands ).

In medieval Europe and until the 19th century in fact, Jews were confined to ghettos and the occupations permitted to them were often restricted. Forced religious conversions were frequent. The "ghetto Jew" became a standard stereotype. The Shakespearean play, "The Merchant of Venice," immortalized the European stereotype of the Jew as a crafty and evil money lender.

Emancipation freed the Jew from the ghetto, but the Jew soon found his way barred in many areas of modern society: clubs, universities and professions were often closed to Jews, or had a quota for Jews. In modern times, Jew hatred was exacerbated by the rise of nationalism. The Czarist Russian government forced Jews to live in a pale of settlement. Czarist secret police helped to incite massacres of Jews in the nineteenth century, called Pogroms.

In the early twentieth century Jew hate was rife in most of Europe. Western culture took stereotypes of Jew hate for granted. The novels of Dorothy Sayers, Agatha Christie and Scott Fitzgerald portrayed the Jew as crafty, pushy and dishonest. In his youthful diary, Somerset Maugham described the Jew as crafty, dishonest and ugly, and "Jewesses" as sexy and promiscuous.

In France, the Jew Alfred Dreyfus was disgraced, dismissed from the French army and banished to exile on a false espionage charge at the end of the nineteenth century. The Jew became the target of numerous right wing groups in Central and Eastern Europe. European Jew hate culminated in the Holocaust, perpetrated by the Nazi regime in Germany, in which six million Jews were murdered. The Holocaust was perpetrated by the Germans, but they were eagerly assisted by Jew haters in the territories they occupied, and by the fact that almost no country in the world was willing to take in Jews fleeing Nazi persecution.

The Holocaust also spawned a new Jew hate libel, Holocaust denial: the perverse claim that Jews fabricated the story of the Holocaust.. Anti-Semites variously refer to the "Holocaust Myth," and "Holocaust Hoax." Massive documentation, confessions of war criminals, accounts of survivors, physical evidence of the gas chambers, documentary records, population statistics, crematoria and death camps are all dismissed as "inventions" by Holocaust deniers.

Following the Holocaust, outright Jew hate became less fashionable in the West, and therefore the same product is often served up in the guise of "anti-Zionism." In the USSR, the Jew was attacked as a "rootless cosmopolitan," and "Zionist" was used consistently as a substitute for "Jew." The Soviets invented an anti-Semitic "science" of Zionology. This practice spread, so that myths of Zionist control of the world substituted in many places for myths of Jewish control.

However, in the Arab world some Jew haters are more honest, and use the Jew word unabashedly. For example, in Al Ahram, Khaled Amayreh recently quoted a Palestinian official as saying of German Chancellor Angela Merkel : "This woman, like all German leaders since [Konrad] Adenauer, feels enslaved by the Jews." Al-Ahram also reported that Jimmy Carter lashed out against "the Jews" at an award ceremony.

Copies of the forged Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Hitler's Mein Kampf, Henry Ford's International Jew, and other hateful works, many produced in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, continue to circulate, especially in the Arab world. These and other books perpetuate Jew hate, and harp on the following classic themes:

Jews are all powerful.

Jews are taught by the Talmud to be deceitful, to hate non-Jews and to plot the conquest of the world.

Jews practice ritual murder of Christians. This is called the blood libel. It was condemned by some popes but affirmed by others (See Papal Bulls about Jews). Even today there are groups and Web sites that support the cults of child "saints" like Andreas of Rinn and Simon of Trent allegedly murdered in fictitious Jewish rituals. The blood libel is widely believed in the Arab world and supported by a popular book by Moustapha Tlass, former Defense Minister of Syria.

Jews start all the wars, including World War I, World War II, the Iraq War and the French Revolution.

The Jews have secret lore, including hidden plots against Christians, revealed in a "secret" book called the Hesronot Shas, which only Jews are allowed to read.

There is a powerful Jewish conspiracy, the Elders of Zion, that is plotting to take over the world.

Jews bake Matzot or Purim pastries from the blood of Christian children. This medieval accusation appeared in a Saudi Arabian journal not long ago.

"The Jews" are responsible for World War I, World War II, the Russian Revolution and the French Revolution. These accusations recur in various places, including the charter of the Hamas movement.

Jews invented the Holocaust, in order to gain concessions from the world, and in particular, to get a Jewish state.

There are No Jews
A novel form of Jew Hatred has been invented by a Jew. We shall call it Jew denial. Shlomo Zand, a professor of French history, insists that Jews are all impostors and not descended from the ancient Jews. Jews, according to Zand, were never exiled from Roman Palestine, and all those people in the Diaspora were converts. The "real" Jews of ancient times are the Arabs of Palestine. Hitler killed the wrong people, it seems. More about Zand and his ideas: Jewish people: Do we exist?

Jew Pig
Medieval and renaissance churches in Germany and a few other places in Europe are decorated with a common motif called the Judensau - Jew Pig or Jews Pig. This shows Jews performing various indecent acts with pigs. A particularly odious one was reproduced in a book published in Frankfurt Am Main in the 18th century. It shows Jews copulating with a pig and suckling it, while a goat copulates with a Jewess and the Devil looks on. The top panel represents the blood libel. showing the child "martyr" Simon of Trent.

Jew Gold
Jew Gold is a superstition that may have originated with the satirical animated show, South Park. The claim is that Jews have a bag of gold that they wear around their necks, or perhaps that Jews wear one fake bag that is fairly visible and contains only rocks and a different one that is real and concealed and contains the gold. Unfortunately, the "joke" is believed in one form or another by many people, such as for example, a Dr. William Pierce who wrote about it here: natvan.com/free-speech/fs987c.html. You can see the clip of the Jew Gold episode from Southpark here

Jew on the Internet
Although Google and other search engines do not feature the Jew hate Web sites as prominently as they once did, it is still very easy to find anti-Semitic propaganda on the Web. Some of these sites are returned for keyword "Zionism." Some of the principle purveyors of racism today include these Web sites among others:

* jewwatch.com/ - Features Jewish conspiracies, Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Henry Ford's "International Jew," Zionist Occupied Government (see ZOG). Claims that Leon Trotsky was a Zionist, a claim that might surprise a lot of Trotskyites. This site was once returned by Google as number 1 for keyword "Jew." It now seems to be listed only for its main page domain name.

* biblebelievers.org.au - Protocols of the Elders of Zion and similar materials.

* serendipity.li/zionism.htm - Portrays "Zionism" as a "pernicious" conspiracy precisely the way Judaism is described by anti-Semites. Google returns this site as number 3 currently when people search for "Zionism."

* stormfront.org - American Nazi Party.

* ziopedia.org - An up and coming Australian anti- "Zionist" Web site that features standard anti-Semitic shibboleths. At one point the owner threatened to close the site for lack of funds. It seems that this problem was quickly remedied by eager donors.

* rense.com - Claims to be anti-"Zionist." Features links to the defunct ABBC.COM Web site. Sample material:
Zionists Made A Deal With The Devil
Accepting The 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion'
radioislam.org - Features Jew-Hate and Jew Hate disguised as anti-Zionism.

* ihr.org/ - Holocaust Denial.

* jewscontrol.com/ - Charges that Jews control the media, the government etc.

* zundel.org - Web site of an infamous Holocaust denier

* zundelsite.org/english/101/101toc.html - features the "Holocaust Myth".

www.natall.com is prominently featured in search engines for keyword "Holocaust Hoax"

Note - if you write about these sites on the Web, please do not link to them, as that will increase their popularity in search engines.

And of course there was the Iran Holocaust Contest - a virtual event that may be a preparation for the real thing.

Jews, Zionism and the Talmud
The Talmud is the oral exegesis of Jewish law. Anti-Semites claim that the Talmud teaches hatred of gentiles, and that it is the basis of Zionism. However, the "gentiles" of the Talmud were pagans and not monotheists, and the claims often cite non-existent books of the Talmud such as "Libbre David" invented by anti-Semites. The claim that Zionism originated in the Talmud, is absurd. Many of the founders of Zionism, including Theodore Herzl, were not religious Jews and did not follow the Talmud. There are several non-Zionist and anti-Zionist Jewish sects, such as the Neturei Karta and the Satmar Hassidim (originating in the Transylvanian town of Satu Mare) (see also Jews against Zionism). All of them follow Talmudic law, and include many Talmudic scholars. None of them are Zionists. The same Web sites that claim that the Talmud is the basis of Zionism often proudly link to Neturei Karta and Jews against Zionism Web sites, which explain why, in their view, the Talmud forbids Zionism!

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is a document fabricated by the Czarist Okhrana secret police in the nineteenth century. It claims that the Jews plan to take over the world in conjunction with the Freemasons. The document was apparently concocted by plagiarizing from an 1864 non-anti-Semitic satire by Maurice Joly, about Louis Napoleon, and from an 1868 anti-Semitic novel by one Hermann Goedche written in 1868. In 1921, the New York Times revealed the protocols as a hoax, based on a book by Lucien Wolfe published in London, on research by Alan Dulles and information supplied by an anti-Semitic Russian emigre. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion are sometimes entitled "The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion."

A version of the document and elaborations on the theme of the "International Jew" were published by Henry Ford's Dearborn Independent newspaper in a series of articles in the 1920s. Ford had printed 500,000 copies of the Protocols, but he later retracted and apologized. Nonetheless, racists cite Ford as an "authority" for the authenticity of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion have been translated into many languages including Arabic, and regrettably enjoy a wide readership in Arab countries. The Hamas Charter assumes that they are factual.

Further reading about Protocols of the Elders of Zion
In addition to our own article about the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, you may be interested in these sources: Wikipedia - Protocols of the Elders of Zion Christian Action: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion (quotes Ford's repudiation) The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and Anti-Semitic Conspiracism The Protocols of the Elders of Zion among Palestinians. A Web site that give the texts of protocols are biblebelievers.org.au/przion1.htm which calls it the "Zionist" plan for conquest. This site - biblebelievers.org.au/intern_jew.htm publicizes the "International Jew" articles of Henry Ford. This page documents Egyptian publicity for a television series based on the: Protocols of the Elders of Zion. This article by an Egyptian comments on the TV Series: "Knight without a Horse" that dramatized the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

More about the above at Jew, Talmud Zionism - sense and nonsense about the Jewish religion.

The image of the Jew
First, some pictures of actual Jew-Zionists. We come in all shapes, colors and sizes.

Anti-Semitism: Image of the Jew in the Arab world and Pro-Palestinian Groups
Anti-Zionism is Anti-Semitism, or Jew hate. Arab world propaganda prominently features Jew hate, and anti-Semitism is regrettably a permanent feature of Arab world rhetoric (see Arab and Muslim anti-Semitism - A Study) . Honest supporters of the Palestinian cause condemn anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, but anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism are in fact mingled freely with "criticism of Israel" in Arab propaganda and in Web sites like Rense.com, serendipity.li and the IHR Holocaust denier's Web site. Recently a pro-Palestinian movement (ISM in Britain) failed to pass resolutions condemning anti-Semitism.

Anti-Semitism in US Policy - "The Jews" control the government
The idea that the "Israel Lobby" controls the United States is not new. Though it is now popularized by Jimmy Carter, it was already a pillar of attitudes to Israel in 1967, on the eve of the Six Day War, as revealed in recently declassified documents. Actually, US policy at the time was probably more influenced by the pro-Arab Aramco lobby, which pressured the government, apparently successfully, to renege on its commitments to support Israeli rights to navigation in the Straits of Tiran. In Britain popular journals recently pictured the Jews taking over Europe, but a reformed terrorist revealed that actually, British authorities had made a deal with Islamist terrorists to allow them to operate freely, so long as they do not perpetrate acts of terror in Britain.

Famous Jews
Attention Jew Haters. Here are some famous Jews to hate:

* Jesus of Nazereth - "King of the Jews"
* Mary - Jewish Mother of Jesus
* Joseph - Jewish father of Jesus
* John the Baptist - Just "another" Jew.

Remember that, Mr. Mel Gibson and Biblebelievers. Since someone wrote and asked if Jesus was really a Jew, we should emphasize that indeed he was a Jew, born of a Jewish mother and therefore Jewish by Halachic law even today. This must be true according to Christian belief as well as historically, since Christians believe that Jesus is a descendant of King David.

Jesus celebrated the Passover holiday with his disciples before the Roman authorities crucified him. That was "The last supper."

Jesus said He was a Jew and was very proud of it:
John 4:22 Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews.

Jesus said "we." It was not an accident.

A few more "evil" Jews in modern times:
* Albert Einstein - Famous Jew-Zionist.
* Jonas Salk - Inventor of the polio vaccine - a Jew.
* Albert Sabin - Inventor of the oral polio vaccine - a Jew.
* Edwin Land - Inventor of the Polaroid Camera - a Jew.
* Carl Sagan - Astronomer, Author - a Jew.
* Norbert Wiener - Invented Cybernetics - a Jew. .....

There are hundreds and hundreds of these people and you hate all of them. Too bad for you! Too bad for Hitler, who forced all the Jewish or part-Jewish scientists in Europe to flee - these included, among many stars - Albert Einstein, Lisa Meitner, Max Born and a host of others. This was a great blow to the Nazi war effort, and fortunate for the allies. Among those forced to flee was Fritz Haber, a Jew who originally had the delusion he could be a German. Haber's work was crucial to the German war effort in World War I. He had haughtily turned down all requests to back Zionism, as he was a proud German, but in the end, stripped of his honors, his position in the university and in society, he had to admit, too late, that the Zionists were right.

See also Jewish Scientists and Philosophers Jewish Nobel Prize Winners

Humor about Jew hate

Uncyclopedia: Jew

My Favorite Jew Jokes:
Ikey is reading a newspaper on a park bench. His friend Mo sees him and says:

"Ikey, why are you reading that anti-Semitic newspaper?"

"Mo, I like to read good things about the Jews."

"Good things?"

"Certainly. It says right here that we Jews control the banks, Jews control the newspapers, Jews control the government and all Jews are rich. So what could be bad?"

It's 1932. Ikey and Morris the Jews haven't had work in a year. They are hungry. They see a sign on a church,

"Converts to the Catholic Faith get $100.

$$$ One Hundred Dollars!! $$$"

A fortune in 1932!!

But converting to Catholicism is a big barrier. Ikey and Morris aren't religious, but still, they do not want to leave their people and insult the memory of their ancestors... And yet, they are very hungry. A hundred dollars would buy a lot of food in 1932, and pay the rent too.

"And what if we convert and they don't pay?" asks Morris.
"I'll tell you what," says Ikey. I'll do it, and if they pay, then you can do it."
So Ikey goes into the church, and Morris waits expectantly, and waits, and waits..."
At length, Ikey emerges, beaming.
"So, how was it, Ikey?" asks Morris.
"Ikey? Who is Ikey? I am Aloysius Xavier now."
"OK, OK but how was it?"
"Oh it was wonderful. Father O'Brien said the mass, and at the conclusion the congregants participated in the Eucharist and..."
"Never mind all that, what about the money. Did you get the $100?"
"Money! All you Jews ever think about is money!"





Zionism Israel

Israel Boycott?

Why boycott Israel?
Israel has a better human rights record than any other country in the Middle East - It is a fact (see Human rights in Iran and Israel  Human Rights in Israel and Elsewhere) . Homosexuals are not hanged in Israel, adulteresses are not stoned, women are not forced to wear veils. There are real elections with more than one candidate. Arabs and Jews compete for office in these elections. Arabs and Jews serve as cabinet officers and diplomats. The widest variety of opposition views are published in Israeli newspapers. Israeli Arabs have more rights than Arabs in Saudi Arabia, Egypt or Syria. They can vote, they have the right to judicial redress. Israeli Arab women have more rights than Arab women in any Muslim country. Boycotting Israel singles out one country for punishment - a country that does not deserve it.  Boycotting Israel hurts Israeli and Palestinian students and faculty in Israeli universities.

Boycott Israel?
The boycott Israel campaign is a vicious crusade against peaceful conflict resolution initiated by racist ideologues to promote their own peculiar ideas. They freely admit that they do not want to end the occupation. They want to end the Jewish state, This is the boycott Israel plan in their own words:

- The legitimacy of Israel’s regime must be challenged...
- There is no chance to change Israeli society from within, we are at a dead end and Israeli society is becoming increasingly fascist.
- We are dealing with the dismantling of power, and the question is how to convince this power to voluntarily dismantle....

Targets of boycott and sanction should be the state of Israel, but also Zionist organizations and corporations:

- There is corporate responsibility related to sanctions, divestment, boycott. For example, Caterpillar and Intel (on Iraq al-Manshiyya.). Campaigns should also target the Zionist organization (‘National Institutions’), such as WZO, JA, JNF, which are major perpetrators and maintain discrimination inside Israel.

The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel preaches humanitarian ideals to foreigners, but it tells Palestinians that "Seeds of Peace" is a "most dangerous" organization and that Palestinians who engage in dialogue are "traitors" who take crumbs from Americans and Europeans. Though the spokesman for this group is Omar Barghouti, most of the founders are Hamas-supporting Bir Zeit University lecturers.

The boycott of Israel was originated by the Arab League and smacks of the Nazi campaign to boycott Jews in the 1930s.

Boycott Israel?
Progressive Union Group Opposes Israel Boycott
As Workers Liberty notes:
The first fruit of the academic boycott initiative shows, and at the very beginning, what is wrong with it. At the beginning of July 2002, a Manchester professor, Mona Baker, removed two Israeli colleagues from the boards of two journals she edits on the grounds that she no longer wanted any "official association with an Israeli". One of the people sacked, Miriam Shlesinger, is the former head of Israel's branch of Amnesty International - a group which makes de facto solidarity with the Palestinians!

What Shlesinger thinks, what this person is politically, is of no account. The former head of Israel's Amnesty is as much an Israeli as Prime Minister Sharon is. All Israelis, even those on whom an eventual agreement with the Palestinians would depend, are to be targeted. 

... Their [Boycott advocates] idea of "liberating" "Palestine" demands the destruction of Israel. It implies support for Arab states who still think they can destroy Israel. If, in the course of a new US war on Iraq, a cornered Saddam Hussein decides to go down in history as the destroyer of Israel - with germ warfare, nuclear bombs, or whatever - they will see that as progressive work. Slander?

In 1991, during the Gulf War, the SWP backed Saddam Hussein's rocket attacks on Israel. 

The plain and simple "demands" for "rational" friends of the Palestinians - those who are also fundamentally friendly to the Israelis' right to maintain a Jewish national state - is surely, "Israel out of the Occupied Territories, back to the 1967 borders, let the Palestinians form an independent state". 

Yet the SWP and its allies on the National Executive of the Socialist Alliance rejected a motion from supporters of Solidarity and Workers' Liberty to campaign for solidarity with the Palestinians around this proposal. Why? Because it implies the right of the Israelis to go on "occupying" Israel.



The people who will "run" with the boycott idea belong to this spectrum. They are locked into the "anti-Zionist" mindset according to which opposition to Israel and "Zionism" is more or less identical with opposition to racism.

The more recent UNISON decision (see Unison "contracts out" solidarity with the Palestinians ) to boycott Israel and demand "right of return" is likewise an attempt to destroy Israel, rather than a plea for Palestinian rights.

Do they really want to boycott Israel?
Academic Israel boycotts violate academic freedom and stop the free exchange of information. This article adapted from Israel21c highlights some Israeli achievements. That is what would be lost if universities really did boycott Israel..

The decision by a British academics' union to urge its members to boycott Israel by boycotting their Israeli counterparts has generated outrage and concern among academics and supporters of Israel. The stunningly illogical decision to shun Israeli academic institutions threatens some of the organizations most involved in promoting peace and human rights in Gaza and the West Bank and could impede progress Israeli universities enable in scores of fields.

As a service to those who want to stop the boycott Israel campaign, and  argue Israel's case in this matter, ISRAEL21c has created this special bulletin.

One need only glance at the following achievements to understand what Israel's universities have contributed to human progress and peace and why it would be wrong to boycott Israel. .
 
• Two of the world's most widely used FDA-approved multiple-sclerosis drugs, Copaxone and Rebif, were developed from research carried out at Weizmann Institute of Science.
 
• A revolutionary drug developed by researchers at Bar-Ilan University holds out hope for tens of millions of people around the world who suffer from schizophrenia. Researchers from Tel Aviv University have also invented a drug candidate which holds out promise in this field.
 
• An award-winning scientist at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev developed a biological control for mosquitoes and black flies that cause malaria and river blindness, saving the sight and lives of millions of people in Africa and China.
 
• Scientists at Hebrew University of Jerusalem have developed the FDA-approved drug Exelon for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease and dementia, and are now working on a new anti-Alzheimer's drug also suitable for treating strokes and traumatic brain injuries.
 
• Velcade, an effective new cancer drug that treats multiple myeloma, is based on research by two Technion-Israel Institute of Technology professors. The pair won the 2004 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for their groundbreaking work.
 
• Scientists at Tel Aviv University developed BioPetroClean, a safe environmentally-friendly technology for cleaning oil spills in seas around the globe.
 
• University of Haifa researchers working as part of an international cooperative team, identified the gene capable of increasing the protein content of wheat– a giant step towards combating world hunger.
 
• Research by a professor at the Weizmann Institute has led to the development of promising new therapies for acute spinal cord injuries. The late actor Christopher Reeve described Israel as the 'world-center' for research on paralysis treatment. Proneuron Biotechnologies, the company founded to commercialize this research is also developing a therapy for Parkinson's with support from the Michael J. Fox Foundation.
 
• A team from the Weizmann Institute has demonstrated for the first time how tissues transplanted from pig embryos might, in the future, be able to induce the human body to produce blood-clotting proteins for hemophilia patients.
 
• An Israeli scientific team from the Technion has succeeded in creating in the laboratory beating heart tissue from human embryonic stem cells.
 
• Researchers at the Hebrew University and the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge have isolated the protein that triggers stress in order to try to treat post-traumatic stress syndrome.
 
• A team of Jewish and Arab Israeli genetic researchers from Ben-Gurion University and Soroka Medical Center has identified a genetic defect that causes a severe neurodegenerative disease in Bedouin children, resulting in premature death.
 
• A researcher at Ben Gurion University has succeeded in creating human monoclonal antibodies which can neutralize the highly contagious small-pox virus without inducing the dangerous side effects of the existing vaccine.
 
• A Hebrew University doctoral student has developed an innovative drug that gives people the feeling of satiety, an important development in treatment of the obese.
The achievements do not stop there, but that doesn't stop those who want to boycott Israel. Israel is the 100th smallest country in the world, but many of the world's best technologies were invented here, much of the groundwork laid by whiz-kids from Israel's universities.
• The Pentium NMX Chip was designed at Intel in Israel. Both the Pentium 4 microprocessor and the Centrum processor were designed, developed and produced in Israel, as was voice mail.
 
• Most of Windows operating systems was developed by Microsoft-Israel, as was voice mail technology.
 
• Both Microsoft and Cisco built their only R&D facilities outside the US in Israel, attracted by the high quality of engineers.
 
• Much of the world's security in the fields of computers, banking, and homeland security rests on Israeli inventiveness – a necessary by-product of the years spent defending the country from terrorism and war. An Israeli company, for example, is now working on software that would prevent the kind of repeat bombings seen on the London Underground. The company wishes to complete its research in the UK, but will be unable to because of the boycott.

ISRAEL ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE
Israel's universities are worldwide centers of excellence with students from all over the globe – Arab, Jewish, and Christian alike. There are no ethnic or religious qualifications for entry, and the universities are not controlled by the government.

A recent survey by the Milken Institute showed that of over 400 universities examined worldwide, Hebrew University (HU) and Tel Aviv University (TAU) were ranked 12th and 21st respectively for registering biotech patents. Only one British establishment, London University, could beat those placings. The Weizmann Institute of Science, one of the most important research centers in the world for brain studies, was voted the best university in the world for life scientists to conduct research.

Israel has the highest ratio of university degrees to the population in the world. Twenty-four percent of the workforce holds university degrees, ranking third in the industrialized world, after the US and Holland; and 12 percent hold advanced degrees. As a result, Israel leads the world in the number of scientists and technicians in the workforce – 145 per 10,000, compared to 85 in the US, 70 in Japan, and less than 60 in Germany. Israel also produces more scientific papers per capita than any other nation, 109 per 10,000 people, as well as one of the highest per capita rates of patents filed.
In proportion to its population, Israel has the largest number of startup companies in the world (3,500, mostly in high tech). In absolute terms, Israel has the largest number of startup companies than any other country, except the US. Israel also has the highest concentration of high-tech companies outside of Silicon Valley, and is ranked number two in the world for venture capital funding, behind the US.

ISRAELI ACADEMIC COEXISTENCE
Israel's universities are at the forefront of work with Arabs and Palestinians to try to improve their quality of life and education. They are a main forum for liberal discussion between Jews and Arabs. Arab students and Palestinians study at most of the institutions. At the University of Haifa, for example, 20 percent of undergraduates are Arab Israelis.

Haifa University has a Jewish-Arab Center which advances dialogue on Arab-Jewish coexistence. It also runs an Arab Student Leadership Program, and researchers at the university work jointly with Al-Quds University in east Jerusalem, to develop and implement diagnostic and prognostic tests for learning disabilities in Palestinian and Israeli youth.

Hebrew University, which was targeted in a terror attack that killed both Jews and Arabs, was co-founded by Albert Einstein. It has always espoused the values of pluralism and tolerance and has a large number of Arab-Israeli programs, including training courses for dentists from the PA and Middle East countries, and a variety of joint Israeli-Palestinian research projects.

The university's first international symposium was jointly organized by the dental schools of the Hebrew University and Al-Quds University in November last year despite political tension. The Braun School of Public Health and Community Medicine has 35 graduates from Gaza and the West Bank. Some of the school's graduates founded the School of Public Health at Al Quds University and continue to teach there. The school has a trilateral agreement with Al Quds and a US university for research, training and development of public health programs and a trilateral workshop on development of software for smoking cessation programs is planned.

In October last year, the rectors of HU, TAU, the University of Haifa, Ben Gurion University, the Weizmann Institute, and the Technion wrote a letter to Israel's Minister of Defense to cancel a ban imposed by the IDF on Palestinian students entering Israel to study.

ISRAELI ACADEMIC IMPERATIVE
Israel's universities are a breeding ground for innovation, excellence and liberal dialogue. They make a massive contribution to the world in science, medicine, environment, communications and security. Israel may be a tiny country, but it is making one of the greatest contributions of any country on the planet, improving and transforming the lives of millions. Israel's researchers do not deserve to be shunned, and the world should not risk losing their research.

BOYCOTT ISRAEL CAMPAIGN HURTS PALESTINIANS
In the words of Dr. Sari Nusseibeh, president of the Palestinian Al-Quds University: "The free flow of science and information... constitutes a powerful force against war... Of all possible bridges to burn as a form of 'well-intentioned' political pressure, the boycott of academic cooperation between Israelis and Palestinians should be excluded..."





Zionism Israel

Anti Zionism

Anti-Zionism has become the most dangerous and effective form of anti- Semitism in our time, through its systematic delegitimization, defamation, and demonization of Israel. Although not a priori anti-Semitic, the calls to dismantle the Jewish state, whether they come from Muslims, the Left, or the radical Right, increasingly rely on an anti-Semitic stereotypization of classic themes, such as the manipulative "Jewish lobby," the Jewish/Zionist "world conspiracy," and Jewish/Israeli "warmongers."

One major driving force of this anti-Zionism/anti-Semitism is the transformation of the Palestinian cause into a "holy war"; another source is anti-Americanism linked with fundamentalist Islamism. In the current context, classic conspiracy theories, such as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, are enjoying a spectacular revival. The common denominator of the new anti-Zionism has been the systematic effort to criminalize Israeli and Jewish behavior, so as to place it beyond the pale of civilized and acceptable conduct.

Indeed, Israel is today the only state on the face of this planet that such a large number of disparate people wish to see disappear - itself a chilling reminder of the Nazi propaganda of the 1930s.

The most virulent expressions of this "exterminationist" or genocidal anti-Zionism have come from the Arab-Muslim world, which is the historical heir of the earlier 20th-century forms of totalitarian anti-Semitism in Hitler's Germany and the Soviet Union. Even "moderate" Muslim statesmen such as Mahathir Mohammad have publicly repeated the classic anti-Semitic belief that "Jews rule the world" while eliciting virtually no objections in the Islamic world.

The more radical Islamists from Al-Qaida to the Palestinian Hamas go much further since they fuse indiscriminate terror, suicide bombings, and a Protocols of Zion style of anti-Semitism with the ideology of jihad.

In this case, the socalled "war against Zionism" unmistakably embraces the total demonization of the "Jewish other": as the "enemy of mankind," as deadly poisonous snakes, as barbarian "***" and "Holocaust manipulators" who control international finance, not to mention America, or theWestern mass media, while they busily instigate wars and revolutions to achieve world domination.

Such conspiracy theories sailing under "anti-Zionist" colors constitute a highly toxic, even murderous worldview that today is linked to religious fanaticism and a worldwide revolutionary agenda.

The same demonizing stereotypes can, however, be found in moderate pro-Western Egypt (home to the Protocols based anti-Semitic soap opera Rider without a Horse), secular Baathist Syria, conservative Wahhabite Saudi Arabia, and the Shiite fundamentalist Iran of the ayatollahs. This is an ideological anti-Zionism that seeks both the annihilation of Israel and a world "liberated from the Jews" - in other words, it is a totalist form of anti-Semitism.

Palestinian suffering and Arab "anti-Zionism" have helped to infect Europe with an old-new version of anti-Semitism in which Jews are rapacious, bloodsucking colonialists. The theme is that Jews were rootless, imperialist invaders who came to Palestine to conquer the land by brute force, to expel or "cleanse" it of its natives.

They are the modern "Crusaders" with no legitimate rights to the soil - an alien transplant, absolutely foreign to the region. They succeeded only because of a gigantic occult conspiracy in which the Zionists (i.e., the Jews) manipulated Great Britain and subsequently America.

This is a typically anti-Semitic narrative of which Hitler might have approved - widely believed around the world, even credited by millions of educated people in the West. The popularity of the Protocols today is the one telling symptom of the
growing merger between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. Zionism is increasingly depicted in some mainstream media as being "criminal" in its essence as well as its behavior.