{Also published at Jews Down Under and the Elder of Ziyon.}
 |
| A poster in my neighborhood |
On Sunday, January 28, 2018 - perhaps as you read this - a few pro-Israel / pro-Jewish people will stand outside of this anti-Israel / anti-Jewish politicized bakery that all Jewish people must pass by if we wish to get onto the Bay Area Rapid Transit system (BART) on our way into San Francisco or anywhere around the Bay Area.
Whenever I pass through those turnstiles it puts my mind to nothing so much as 1930s Berlin.
Can you imagine what it is like for any Jewish person in the SF Bay Area to have to walk past a restaurant that celebrates the murder of your own people if you simply wish to take public transportation? And what is even worse is that, in this part of the political universe, if you so much as dare to object you are smeared as a racist and an Islamophobe and a sexist and a transphobe and God Knows What All.
I recently received this note in an email from friends:
COME TO THE VIGIL: Reems Bakery: Sunday, January 28, Reems Bakery Will be Hosting a Book Signing Promoting Academic Boycotts Against Israel. - San Francisco Voice For IsraelObviously, I am not expecting you guys to leap from your chairs and run down to Fruitvale BART.
ACTION: Please come and join our vigil against this book signing.
In one of the most egregious examples in recent memory of the normalization of anti-Semitism and violence in our community, Reem Assil has decorated her Oakland bakery with a floor to ceiling mural honoring convicted terrorist Rasmea Odeh, who murdered 2 and wounded 9 others when a bomb she placed in a Jerusalem grocery store exploded. On Sunday January 28, the bakery will be hosting a book signing promoting academic boycotts against Israel.
In response, there will be a vigil in front of the bakery, exposing the hate and intolerance, not only of the BDS movement, but of Reem's Bakery.
We'll be gathering at 3:30, Sunday January 28 3301 E 12th St #133, Oakland. Reem's bakery is steps away from Fruitvale BART. Please consider joining us, and pass this information on to any one you think might be interested in coming
I am just letting you know that there are still a few people who give a damn.
StandWithUs did, in fact, stand with us.
But where are the synagogues and other local pro-Jewish / pro-Israel organizations?
And how is it that the city of Oakland does not seem to care one way or the other?
I feel reasonably sure that if Reem's was "Ariel Sharon's Joint and Whiskey Bar" and featured a worshipful mural of Baruch Goldstein the people of Oakland would have arisen as one and shut that place down in a New York Minute with the full support of city government.
As always, it is the blatant hypocrisy that is too much to take.
Oakland's mayor is willing to go to jail to protest Trump's immigration policies but I suspect she wouldn't cross the street to oppose a sh**hole like Reem's Genocidal Bakery and Bomber's Memorial. I suspect she is in good and abundant company.
ReplyDeleteI hope you get a decent turnout Mike. I had hoped the lousy place had gone bankrupt by now. Too bad.
Assil may have gotten lucky in a sense.
DeleteShe hit me with a frivolous case and might have had to pay dearly for that were it not for a sympathetic judge.
This judge was not so sympathetic to Assil as to see beyond the law - which is why she had no case, whatsoever, against me - but the judge was sympathetic enough to let her go without what could have been huge court fees.
But really what this is all about is a challenge to freedom of speech.
DeleteBased on the nature of the action and result, you are not stopped from pursuing your own cause for malicious prosecution or abuse of process.
DeleteThe court would have to take judicial notice of the Odeh determination. A problem, of course, could be the jury pool. Still, as much as she has the right to sport terrorism, you have the right to publicize that the lady inside is a terrorist and who blatantly lied to become an American.
Even as she becomes more open in her bigotry, which does not hurt her in Oakland, how easy it can be to dupe others by pretending to be something you are not. Reminds of the pro-Israelism of J Street. Unethical.
Odeh is just some lady to most who see her face, who know more about what is trending or what to put on Facebook so that others will be in envy. Reems most likely laughs at the ignorance of many of her customers, those who would not support her if they knew she lauded terrorists just like Abbas and other peace loving Palestinians do.
I wish someone would just open the Arik Sharon Joint and Whiskey Bar (I like the name, actually) and put up a mural of Goldstein (no, not Goldstein, we do not revere him, perhaps Menachem Begin would be enough to get their bile going)and follow up the ensuing action on the street outside it. Great idea to call out the hypocrisy. And do a book signing of Ben-Dror Yemini's "Industry of Lies."
DeleteThat sign is missing its most important phrase..."except Jews." Someone oughta fix it.
ReplyDeleteIn her recent book, The New Anti-Semitism,
ReplyDeletefeminist author Phyllis Chesler writes:
My heart is broken by the cunning and purposeful silence of progressives and academics on the subject of anti-Semitism and terrorism. I write "silence" to be kind. What I'm really talking about is the betrayal of the Jews…
by western intellectuals, some of whom are also Jews themselves. Perhaps like me they do not want to give up the larger world in order to retain their religious, racial, and cultural identities as Jews. After all, who willingly wants to wear the yellow star?
SOURCE: www.aish.com/jl/jnj/ash/48900712.html
“In our efforts to appease radical Islam, we accept blame for its iniquities, or blame them on Israel. We pressure Israel to offer land-for-peace, naively assuming that radical Islam will stop thirsting for our blood.
ReplyDeleteBut history teaches otherwise: appeasement through territorial concession only strengthens the aggressor. In the run-up to World War II, Hitler understood this principle far better than did Chamberlain. The British Prime Minister served up Czechoslovakia to his German counterpart in exchange for peace, only to be repaid with war.
But there is an even more dangerous lesson that appeasement teaches:
It tells our enemy that there is no need to compromise with us.
Whether in Israel, Spain, or Britain, appeasement hands radical Islam all the cards and says that we will play by its rules, [and] that concessions will come from our side.”
SOURCE: They Must Be Stopped: Why We Must Defeat Radical Islam and How We Can Do It (Introduction Chapter, page 9) by Brigitte Gabriel, year 2008, year 2010, St. Martin’s Press, 288 pages, ISBN 0312571283, ISBN 9780312571283.
MICROBIOGRAPHY: Brigitte Gabriel, the author of They Must Be Stopped, is a Christian Arab, born in Lebanon. Arabic is her native language.
Mr. Cohen,
DeleteWhy do you think the lessons of WWII and the mistakes that led to it, i.e., lessons we were taught and brought up with for decades after the war, have been so quickly and thoroughly forgotten? Our leaders used to recite these lessons almost ad nauseam. What happened?
Educational institutions from kindergarten to graduate schools, in Europe and Canada and the USA and Israel and Australia, are all dominated by the Far-Leftists, brainwashed Liberals, and Socialists.
DeleteThe same thing is true of the news media in all those places, including: newspapers, television news, radio, and news web sites.
Hollywood is also dominated by the same politics.
Even the Reform Judaism movement, especially at its upper leadership levels, is merely the semi-Jewish branch of they Far-Left and Socialists; they place 500 times more emphasis on Far-Left values than they do on Judaism, and they want to wipe all-of-Israel off-the-map forever. They demonize anyone who disagrees with them.
Therefore, traditional values and right-wing views have no chance of being broadcasted through any part of the: news media, entertainment media, or the academic world, or even Reform Rabbis.
Our laws proclaim freedom of speech, but the institutions that control the flow of information permit and promote only the Leftist point-of-view on all issues.
Even so-called “moderate” Muslims, who do not agree with these jihadists’ devotion to the purest form of Islam or their terror tactics, respect their passion and commitment.
ReplyDeleteSOURCE: They Must Be Stopped: Why We Must Defeat Radical Islam and How We Can Do It (Introduction Chapter, page 3) by Brigitte Gabriel, year 2008, year 2010, St. Martin’s Press, 288 pages, ISBN 0312571283, ISBN 9780312571283.
MICROBIOGRAPHY: Brigitte Gabriel, the author of They Must Be Stopped, is a Christian Arab, born in Lebanon. Arabic is her native language.
PERSONAL COMMENT:
The Arab/Muslim terrorists who destroyed the World Trade Center on 2001/9/11 were ALL from Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which were both universally accepted as moderate Arab/Muslim nations at that time.
---------------------------------------------
“According to the original law of Mohammed, there are no innocent civilians.
Radical Islamists consider all people — in or out of military uniform — who do not believe in the original Islam of Mohammed, to be the enemy, until they convert or are subjected to Islamic law.”
SOURCE: They Must Be Stopped: Why We Must Defeat Radical Islam and How We Can Do It (Introduction Chapter, page 3) by Brigitte Gabriel, year 2008, year 2010, St. Martin’s Press, 288 pages, ISBN 0312571283, ISBN 9780312571283.
MICROBIOGRAPHY: Brigitte Gabriel, the author of They Must Be Stopped, is a Christian Arab, born in Lebanon. Arabic is her native language.
Dennis Prager said:
ReplyDelete“Israel, it ought to be recalled, is the only country in the world targeted for annihilation. That has been true from the day it was proclaimed as a state in 1948 until today [December 2015].
It was true before Israel was forced to conquer East Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank.
It was true after three Israeli prime ministers: Yitzchak Rabin, Ehud Barak, and Ehud Olmert, agreed to give up virtually all of Gaza and the West Bank to the Palestinians to set up a Palestinian state.
It was [still] true after Israel have every inch of Gaza to the Palestinians.
All of which proves that when Palestinian spokesmen say they want peace, they do not mean peace WITH Israel, they mean peace WITHOUT Israel.”
SOURCE: Why I am in Israel and you should be by Dennis Prager, December 2015, Country Yossi magazine, December 2015, page 48
Aside from the sign in your neighborhood being meaningless, whose sign is it? Does it belong to the city? The chamber of commerce? lol Or was it put there by people with nothing meaningful to contribute, but who want to feel that they do?
ReplyDeleteOakland doesn't actually stand against or for anything at all. This is 25 years of experience residing in and around Oakland talking. Cities are diverse places with people with diverse views. Many of them, probably most of them, hate something or someone. When you are standing in front of Reem's (and I like what Doodad calls it, because it's so accurate), protesting, there will be people there who hate you.
A book signing urging an academic boycott? What happened to the free speech movement? Don't anyone ever say the Bay Area isn't trendy. So eventually this too shall pass as it moves onto the next trendy topic. People move from one hot topic to the next and there really isn't a lot of thinking involved.
Still, this is dangerous nonsense and calls for at least a middle finger. This is about more than free speech, it is about the rise of antisemitism, this time using the sleight of hand of an illusory and fictional country and national movement. The cause is filled with hate and is eliminationist. And people believe this stuff because they are stupid and are ready to hate, no matter what that stupid sign in your neighborhood states.
Of course, in Oakland, the powers that be want illegal immigrants in the city safe, protected, and given citizenship, but will damn Israelis as trespassers on "Palestinian land" who should be boycotted until they are deported. The deportation and/or murder of Israeli Jews is the "Palestinian Cause."
I wish someone would just open the Arik Sharon Joint and Whiskey Bar (I like the name, actually) and put up a mural of Goldstein (no, not Goldstein, we do not revere him, perhaps Menachem Begin would be enough to get their bile going)and follow up the ensuing action on the street outside it. Great idea to call out the hypocrisy. And do a book signing of Ben-Dror Yemini's "Industry of Lies."
ReplyDeleteThere's a New Orleans-style beignet place directly across from Reem's. Maybe I'll raise the funds to purchase it and we can open up Arik's Joint and Whiskey Bar!
Deletebtw, speaking of my friend Ariel Sharon, back in the day when I was on Daily Kos I posted an old photo of Ariel Sharon and Moshe Dayan that must have been taken in the 50s. Sharon was practically baby-faced. Anyway, I posted it in open thread that was put up by a self-proclaimed "progressive Zionist" (Segall) and the next thing that I know I am being berated from numerous directions for daring to post a picture of an individual as loathsome as Ariel Sharon. The venom came from Jews and non-Jews alike. I betcha Doodad and Kumar were not far away at the time. Kumar, as I recall, went under the name of "Deaniac" and he got the boot... of course, so did I. I am not certain about Doodad, tho.
DeleteShould be a good turnout, it's been discussed on Facebook
ReplyDeleteMike from experience unless you publicise this at Jewish venues, your average Jew won't hear about it.
ReplyDeleteTreat them to some authentic Palestinian culture; throw some non-violent rocks and peaceful Molotov cocktails at the place.
ReplyDeleteJew hating Oakland doubles down.
ReplyDelete"Ahed Tamimi is turning 17. Local Israel haters are marking the event with a protest and a birthday celebration for the young woman who has called for "stabbings and martyrdom operations" against the Israeli people.
Northern California Friends of Sabeel, Jewish Voice for Peace, SFSU GUPS, Palestinian Youth Movement, and the Arab Resource Organizing Center (AROC)- all organizations dedicated to the destruction of Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people are co-sponsoring the event.
Wednesday, January 31, the pre-celebration protest will take place at the Oakland Federal Building at 4:30
Reem's Cafe in Oakland, also known for its open support of terror will be hosting the after protest celebration."
http://proisraelbaybloggers.blogspot.com.au/2018/01/birthday-party-for-ahed-tamimi.html
Oh joy.
DeleteThree years ago the media reported her as being 7 years old/
DeleteThe media assists Pallywood every chance it gets. Since the Elders of Zion control it this leaves me totally confused.
DeleteWell, I just got back from the Reem's thing and what struck me foremost is the other sides absolute fear of dialogue. I don't know what it is, but it is not liberal. That much is certain.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I noticed it was an RSVP event to begin with; weed out any dissidents...lol.
Delete"Jew" simply does not rhyme with "Palestine." What's there to discuss?
DeleteNow you have to set up a confederate with a clipboard asking for their support of the bakery in order to collect their names, email and whatnot to barrage them with hate mail or at the least send all their names to other groups who can harass them.
ReplyDeleteI think that there is a general agreement among the participants that this was the most successful of these actions so far.
ReplyDeleteWe did not seem particularly outnumbered, but I was just talking to people. Heck, I didn't even take out my cell phone to record anything.
The fundamental criticism seems to be that we need to be better organized and more tightly on message.
I suspect that what nobody is going to talk about is the fact that Susan George and Matt Finkelstein showed the other side for non-liberal dimwits that they are.
It was very interesting, actually.
Matt and Susan kept asking the other side to respond and they absolutely refused.
And that is the thing for me.
DeleteI know that some of my friends have a different emphasis, but the failure of liberalism within the progressive-left is what I want to discuss.
That is what interests me the most, in part because no one seems to want to approach the question.
If liberalism stands for anything it stands for freedom of speech and discourse.
And what the other side, yesterday, did not want to do is discuss.
I think that they are just chickenshit and dumb, but this seems to be a trend on the political left. Either shut people down entirely - thru violence or other means - or simply do not engage.
See, that's authoritarianism.
That is a fascistic sensibility.
Next time you might have the same Odeh posters with the words murderer, terrorist, or immigration fraud emblazoned across the top, then ask me across the bottom.
DeleteForget the dialogue. Exposure is what matters.
You can't engage with madmen/women. And they are decidedly mad in every sense of the word.
ReplyDeletePETA throws fake blood on people. That's not an entirely bad idea
ReplyDelete