Tony Greenstein | 29 January 2018 | Post Views:

However Israel
Extends a Welcoming Hand to Neo-Nazi & Far Right Leaders

It is one of life’s ironies that if you are a neo-Nazi and you deny that
the Holocaust occurred, then you are more than welcome to enter Israel, pay
homage to the dead you deny at Yad Vashem, meet government ministers and
profess your joint hatred of Muslims. 
However if you are Jewish and believe that Boycotting Israel is the best
way to change its Apartheid economic and society then you are banned.
This is what Israel has come to. 
Anti-racists are banned but racists, fascists and neo-Nazis are more
than welcome.  People like Heinz
Christian-Strache of Austria, who was a guest of Likud recently.  Or Geert
Wilders
, the Dutch bigot and
parliamentarian or even Richard ‘White Zionist’
Spencer the neo-Nazi alt-Right leader. 

All of the above are welcome in Israel BUT Rebecca
Vilkomerson
, the leader of Jewish
Voices for Peace in the United States is NOT welcome.
Israel is one of the few countries in the world who ban people not for
what they do but what they think.  It is
ironic that it must be the only country in the world to welcome neo-Nazis but
ban the ‘wrong sort of Jews’ from entering. 
I guess that is why it calls itself a ‘Jewish’ state.
Here is the list of 20 groups that have been banned – two – Palestine
Solidarity Campaign and War on Want are from Britain.

Tony Greenstein 
Rebecca Vilkomerson (right) Director of Jewish Voices for Peace is now banned from Israel
Banned Groups
Europe
  • AFPS (France-Palestine Solidarity Association)
  • BDS France
  • BDS Italy
  • ECCP (The European Coordination of Committees and Associations for
    Palestine)
  • FOA (Friends of al-Aqsa)
  • IPSC (Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign)
  • Norge Palestinakomitee (The Palestine Committee of Norway)
  • Palestinagrupperna i Sverige (PGS-Palestine Solidarity Association
    of Sweden)
  • PSC (Palestine Solidarity Campaign)
  • War on Want
  • BDS Kampagne
United States
  • AFSC (American Friends Service Committee)
  • AMP (American Muslims for Palestine)
  • Code Pink
  • JVP (Jewish Voice for Peace)
  • NSJP (National Students for Justice in Palestine)
  • USCPR (U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights)
Other groups
  • BDS Chile
  • BDS South Africa
  • BDS National Committee
Not banned – Herr Strache of the Austrian   Freedom Party visits  Yad Vashem
Philip
Weiss
on January 8, 2018
AFSC logo
One of the special ironies of the
weekend’s news that Israel is barring 20 international organizations from entry
because they support BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) is the appearance
on that list of the venerable American Friends Service Committee, or AFSC,
which was founded 101 years ago as an antiwar organization.
AFSC earned distinction and a
Nobel Prize for helping Jews and other refugees escape the Holocaust. Now it is
on that list because it is helping Palestinians!
AFSC is honored at Israel’s
Holocaust memorial, Yad Vashem, in Jerusalem. From Yad Vashem’s portrait
of the American Friends Service Committee
:

Relief organization established
in 1917 by the Quakers, also known as the Society of Friends, as a forum for
doing service to humanity in a moral fashion. The Quakers make up one of the
smallest religious groups in the United States.
The Foreign Service Section of
the AFSC did even more than the Refugee Division. Cooperating with Jewish
relief agencies, in 1939 the organization sent a delegation to Germany to check
on the situation of Jews and Christians and provide relief if necessary. They
mainly assisted Christian refugees, but they also helped Jews. Among other
activities, they fed and saved children in France, assisted Jews who had
reached Portugal, and organized the activities of relief agencies in Spain.
In 1947 the AFSC won the Nobel
Peace Prize for helping refugees during and after World War II.

Mike Merryman-Lotze of the AFSC
was quoted today by IMEU on the move by Israel:
Geert Vilders, Dutch Fascist leader lived in Tel Aviv

“We will continue to stand up for peace and justice in Israel and
Palestine regardless of the recent Israeli announcement that staff from AFSC and
19 other organizations may be denied entry to Israel because of our support for
the grassroots Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement for Palestinian
human rights.
 

“Our response to the Palestinian BDS call is in line with our similar
support for divestment from apartheid South Africa and boycotts during the
civil rights era. Our work is motivated by Quaker belief in the worth and
dignity of all people, and it is that belief that has led us to support and
join in nonviolent resistance to violence and oppression around the world,
including the Palestinian BDS call, for a hundred years.”

Thanks to Ofer Neiman and
Eitan Diamond
. Oh and Haaretz also did the story. And
thanks to Mondo’s co-editor Adam Horowitz– who used to do Palestinian work at
AFSC.
Yad Vashem page on the American Friends Services Committee role during the War
P.S. This story feeds my
spiritual understanding that Palestinians are being forced by Israel to
recapitulate the history of the Jews. What we experienced in Europe,
Palestinians must experience in Israel and Palestine. This time around we play
the guys with the jack boots! Of course there is a big arc in that story; the
group goes from being humiliated outsiders to people granted prestige by the
world for their suffering. Palestinians are gaining prestige by the moment.
AFSC is surely proud of being named.

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Tony Greenstein

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