The Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Antisemitism
Newsletter
Volume 5 No. 5
29 October 2010
YIISA SEMINAR SERIES
Thursday, November 4, 2010 @ 4:15pm
“’I Don’t Know Why They Hate Us – I Don’t Think We Did Anything Bad To Hurt Them’: Jewish Girls in Toronto (aged 10-12) Reflect On Their Experiences of Antisemitism”
Location: 77 Prospect Street, Room A-001 (Basement Floor)
Speaker: Dr. Nora Gold, Center for Women’s studies, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto
LECTURES OF INTEREST
Wednesday, November 3, 2010 @ 4:30pm
“Jewish Go-Betweens in Iberian North Afican Settlements, 16th-17th Centuries”
Speaker: Jean-Frederick Schaub, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris
Location: Whitney Humanities Center (53 Wall Street), Room 208
Sponsor: Council on Latin American and Iberian Studies; Department of Spanish and Portuguese; Council on Middle East Studies; Program on Judaic Studies; Whitney Humanities Center
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Wednesday, November 3, 2010 @ 7:00pm
“A Voice of Israel’s Arab Minority”
Speaker: Ishmael Khaldi, Policy Advisor to Israel’s Foreign Ministry
Location: Linsly-Chittenden Hall (63 High Street), Room 101
Sponsor: Jews and Muslims at Yale; Council on Middle East Studies; The Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations Department; Intercultural Affairs Council; The David Project; Hasbara Fellowships
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QUOTE OF THE DAY
“…intellectual freedom is essential to human society freedom to obtain and distribute information, freedom for open-minded and unfearing debate and freedom from pressure by officialdom and prejudices. Such a trinity of freedom of thought is the only guarantee against an infection of people by mass myths, which, in the hands of treacherous hypocrites and demagogues, can be transformed into bloody dictatorship.” — Sakharov
BOOK SUGGESTION OF THE WEEK
The Jew is Not My Enemy: Unveiling the Myths that Fuel Muslim Antisemitism
Tarek Fatah (McClelland & Steward, October 2010)
REPORTS
American Public Opinion Toward Iran’s Nuclear Program: Moving Towards Confrontation
(Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies) Contrary to common wisdom, an in-depth analysis of US public opinion polls shows that most Americans increasingly understand that the radical Islamic regime in Iran must be confronted. Few believe that President Obama’s strategy of engagement and negotiation with Iran will be successful. Indeed, over the past two years, a substantial majority of Americans have come to support the use of military force against Iran – if diplomacy and sanctions fail to stop the Iranian nuclear program.
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Palestinian Reformist: The Islamization of the Palestinian Cause is an Obstacle to Its Resolution
(MEMRI) In an interview posted on the liberal Arab website Aafaq, Palestinian reformist Zainab Rashid said that the Arab dictatorial regimes exploit the Palestinian cause in order to divert attention from their own domestic problems and suppress initiatives of democratization and reform. She also opposed the Islamization of the Palestinian cause, saying the Palestinian issue will never be resolved as long as it is construed as a religious struggle destined to continue until Judgment Day.
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Jerusalem Issue Briefs: Ahmadinejad in Lebanon
(Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs) Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s visit to Lebanon constitutes an additional stage in the process of the Lebanese state’s collapse. From now on, Hizbullah supporters will find it difficult to argue that theirs is a national Lebanese party operating in the Lebanese reality on behalf of Lebanese objectives.
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SPECIAL ARTICLES OF INTEREST
UN poisons its human rights mission
(The Australian) Irwin Cotler, a member of parliament and a former minister of justice and attorney-general of Canada, writes: The UN Human Rights Council is the mandated UN body responsible for the promotion and protection of international human rights.
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Blog Post by Martin Peretz
(The New Republic) Martin Peretz writes: Everybody, it seems, worries about there being no moratorium on settlements. I Don’t. I worry that Lebanon is about to collapse.
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ARTICLES OF INTEREST
IRAN
Iran Agrees to Resume Nuclear Talks
(NY Times) Iran said Friday that it would resume talks with the West about its nuclear program in November, according to officials at the European Union.
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U.S. Tries Restart of Talks With Iran
(Wall Street Journal) The Obama administration is pushing to revive a failed deal for Iran to send some of its nuclear stockpile overseas in exchange for assistance with peaceful nuclear technology, according to senior U.S. officials. The aim is to try to reduce Tehran’s ability to quickly produce an atomic weapon.
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ANALYSIS: Iran’s unlikely understanding with Saudi Arabia
(Haaretz) Iran and Saudi Arabia are working together to divide up their sphere of influence in Lebanon and Iraq.
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Nigeria intercepts 13 Iran missile containers possibly destined for Gaza
(Haaretz) Rocket launchers, grenades and other explosives camouflaged as building material were seized in the Nigerian port of Lagos.
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MIDDLE EAST
Islamic Jihad leader: Israel must be wiped out of existence
(Haaretz) Organizers say up to 100,000 people attend largest Islamic Jihad rally in Gaza in several years; Hamas leader calls for unity against Israel.
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Obama’s reset button not working for Syria
(Washington Post) The Obama administration is justifiably proud of how it has managed to “reset” relations with Russia, and how it has managed to build international pressure against Iran after its efforts at engagement were spurned. But the reset button for Syria seems to have failed, if the latest remarks by Syrian president Bashar al-Assad are any indication.
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In West Bank, Hamas beaten down, but not out
(Reuters) By its own admission, Hamas is a shadow of its former self in the West Bank. As the group deepens its control of the Gaza Strip, it says it barely exists as a political organization in the West Bank. But, fortified by ideology, it is far from dead.
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Hamas minister: We’ll occupy Haifa, Akko
(Ynet) Fathi Hamas, Gaza’s interior minister, visits Khan Younis University and threatens to seize Israeli cities with help of ‘armies from all around the world.’ Israelis and Americans won’t be satisfied with any concessions, he says in message to Palestinian President Abbas.
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Hezbollah calls on Lebanese to boycott Hariri court
(Reuters) Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah urged all Lebanese on Thursday to boycott the international investigation into the 2005 killing of statesman Rafik al-Hariri and accused investigators of sending information to Israel.
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UN Undeterred by Attack on Investigators in Lebanon
(Business Week) The United Nations tribunal investigating the killing of former Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri said it is undeterred by an attack on its investigators at a clinic in a southern suburb of Beirut.
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85th Conference of Liaison Officers of Arab Boycott of Israel Kicks Off
(Syrian Arab News Agency) The 85th Conference of the Liaison Officers of the Arab Regional Offices for the Boycott of Israel kicked off in Damascus with the participation of 15 Arab countries and representatives of the Arab League (AL) and the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC).
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MISCELLANEOUS
Appeal trial in the antisemitic murder of Ilan Halimi by ‘gang of barbarians’
(European Jewish Press) A court in Creteil, near Paris, began on Monday the appeal trial of 17 people convicted in the 2006 kidnapping, torture and murder of Ilan Halimi, a 23-year-old young man targeted because he was Jewish.
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Tutu’s call for opera to boycott Israel gets strong reaction
(Mail & Guardian) The South African Jewish Board of Deputies’s (SAJBD) Cape Council rejected a call by Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu for the Cape Town Opera to cancel a planned trip to Israel.
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NORTH AMERICA
Suspicious packages raise alarm in US, UK
(JPost) UPS packages sent from Yemen, two to Jewish institutions in Chicago, are intercepted and checked for explosive material.
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