Gaza “Freedom Flotilla” activist compares Israel to Nazis, rationalises terrorism
As the nine-ship “Freedom Flotilla” approaches Gaza with thousands of tonnes of aid for the Hamas ruled territory, the extremist views of some of its participants have been revealed by an Israeli newspaper. Ynet (the English language version of Yediot Aharonot) carries an interview today with Greek university professor Vangelis Pissias, a prominent activist aboard one of the ships.
Pissias is quoted by the newspaper as saying the following: “We’re helping the Palestinians, just like the Greeks helped during World War II against the Nazis.” Turning to the question of Palestinian terrorism, he added: “These people are doing what reality causes them to do.”
Frankly, that some members of this group hold such appalling views is not really a suprise. But it is useful to have this on the record as the flotilla’s journey draws to what its organisers hope will be a very public finale.
On another matter, the Israel/Apartheid nuclear story continues to linger in the air. Cif Watch has another extensive posting about it today which readers should find interesting.
Tags: Israel
May 26th, 2010 at 9:20 am
“Pissias is quoted by the newspaper as saying the following: “We’re helping the Palestinians, just like the Greeks helped during World War II against the Nazis.” ”
Insofar as the Jewish people of Greece were concerned, it would a lot truer to say that during World War II the Greeks helped the Nazis exterminate the Jews.
The Wall Street Journal: The Shame of Modern Greece
The country suffers from a lack of moral leadership denouncing the embarrassment of anti-Semitism.
[Extract]
“Instead of the Holocaust being treated as a moment for moral and historical reflection, it is portrayed as an opportunity for national self-congratulation because of the rescue of a small number of Greek Jews. The genuine heroism of Greek Christians who saved Greek Jews from the Nazis in such places as Zakynthos and Athens is used to obscure the collaboration and indifference that helped condemn tens of thousands of Greek Jews to death in Salonika and northern Greece.
This ignorance has been reinforced by historians, Greek and foreign alike, who have largely skated over collaboration during the Holocaust. Like the Greek government, historians prefer to emphasize the rescue of Jews rather than prompt an examination of the often shameful and ambiguous stance that too many Greeks took during the Second World War. The leaders of Greece’s barely 5,000 strong Jewish community take a similar historical approach for obvious political reasons. Over sixty years after the Holocaust, myths prevail over scholarship.”
http://tinyurl.com/y87r54a
“On the eve of World War II, some 80,000 Jews lived in thirty-one communities in Greece. By far the largest and best known was Salonika, a Jewish metropolis since ancient times. Seventy thousand Jews, or 87 percent of Greek Jewry, perished in the Holocaust. Only 10,000 persons survived.”
http://www.zchor.org/greece/jewry.htm
May 26th, 2010 at 9:23 am
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
Anti-Semitism in Greece: Embedded in Society
[Extract]
‘Anti-Semitism in Greece occurs not only among extreme rightists and leftists. It is embedded in Greek mainstream society and manifests itself in religious contexts, education, politics and the media. Jews are often not perceived as true Greeks, although many families have lived there since the 15th century.
A Eurobarometer survey in the year 2000 showed Greece to have the highest degree of xenophobia in the European Union.
Greek mainstream media regularly uses the terms “genocide,” “Holocaust” and the names of concentration camps drawing a parallel between Nazi Germany and Israel today. In this, Greece is more similar to Syria and Iran than to the Western world.’
http://www.jcpa.org/phas/phas-23.htm
May 26th, 2010 at 9:55 am
Robin Shepherd you say that the members of the flotilla have appalling views. However one wonders how people can be quite so ignorant without assistance. Are they deliberately blind or deliberately antisemitic? I am sure that that contributes to an extent. However an even greater contribution to this kind of misapprehension is made by the media that very deliberately withhold certain information and place emphasis on the wrong kind of information.
How is it that a person of academic standing, can get things so wrong without help, that he does not understand that the remedy for Gaza’s problems lie in Hamas’s hands and that if they recognised past agreements signed by the PA, recognised Israel and stopped the violence that they call ‘resistance’ the blockade would be ended? What does he consider to be the motive of Israel (and of course unstated, Egypt too) in mounting this blockade of Gaza?
“These people are doing what reality causes them to do.” One wonders what he imagines this reality to be.
May 26th, 2010 at 10:24 am
Well it’s pretty obvious what the motives of these idiots are, and it certainly isn’t to bring aid to the Palestinians.
They know that Israel does not object to overland tranfers of aid but have refused an offer to unload their cargo at Ashdod for trucking into Gaza.
The real aim of these so-called humanitarians is not to get aid into Gaza, but to confront Israel in the hope of provoking a diplomatic incident.
They couldn’t care less about the aid shipment or the welfare of its recipients.
May 26th, 2010 at 11:12 am
Jasmine Murphy writes:
“How is it that a person of academic standing, can get things so wrong without help”
That a person is highly intelligent is absolutely no guarantee that he will not be a bigot. Thus, the intelligence service of the SS, the SD (Sicherheitsdienst), contained within its ranks some of the cleverest people in Germany and Austria who were in very many cases also some of the most wicked. A similar point could be made about journalists at the the Guardian, the Independent and the BBC.
May 26th, 2010 at 12:09 pm
“Greek university professor Vangelis Pissias, a prominent activist”
Ah – I’ve been trying to get a degree in “activism” so that I can also claim to be an “activist” Maybe his university is where one goes, and takes classes with him.
However, bearing in mind the Greek financial crisis, it rather looks like Pissias (an unfortunate name) is like a rat scuttling from one sinking ship to what I hope will be another.
May 26th, 2010 at 12:39 pm
So the poor “starving” Gazans under “under siege” are they? Maybe the flotilla participants should hold a party at this nice looking venue in Gaza City.
http://www.rootsclub.ps/services.php#roots
Not the Gaza City as portrayed by the world’s media – see video:
http://www.rootsclub.ps/movie.php
May 27th, 2010 at 12:21 am
“Pissias (an unfortunate name) is like a rat scuttling from one sinking ship to what I hope will be another,” says AKUS. Duvidl is prompted to a limerick, thus:
Beware the gift-bearing Greek, Pissias.
His Gaza flotilla’s a full-fledged farce.
With Turkish Jew-haters
And Hamas one-staters,
What a media tart with a greasy arse.
May 27th, 2010 at 3:36 am
Please don’t shout down me, but I just tried to think into it, would it not perhaps been better if these extremist parasites just gained a pass and entered Gaza? Wouldn’t their campaign have just more easily fused out and be better from Israel’s PoV? I tend to think that it might… I don’t know.
May 27th, 2010 at 11:32 am
Who is Vangelis Pissias? What does he teach at what university?
The Greeks fought against the Germans but also used the opportunity to commit massacres against non Greek minorities especially Albanians and then conducted a civil war between Right and Left that began while the Nazis were still in occupation. About 1 million people were displaced.
The ideal instructors to the Gazans.
May 27th, 2010 at 1:13 pm
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/arts/israel-still-looks-good-warts-and-all/story-e6frg8px-1225705899965
A refreshing dose of Aussie common sense
May 27th, 2010 at 3:37 pm
http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/malam_multimedia/English/eng_n/html/hamas_e104.htm
Here is an update from the Israeli Foreign Affairs Ministry newsletter.
May 27th, 2010 at 10:16 pm
A “story” concerning the Guardian from the 90s (CIF Watch)
I thought others may be interested.
Unbelievable! (Almost…)
“Well, well, well. Look what else turned up in the JC Archives.
The issue of 6 September 1996 carries a report of the Advertising Standards Authority’s ruling that a half-page advertisement which had netted The Guardian (under Rustbucket’s editorship) a cool £8000 “went beyond the bounds of reasonable free speech and was likely to cause serious offence to some readers”. The advertisement in question had been referred to the Authority by David Hunt, a Tory MP who chaired the Inter-Parliamentary Council against Anti-Semitism and complained aboout the ad’s “classic anti-Semitic propaganda” (I’m using the hyphen because I’m quoting). The offensive half-page advert had appeared in the paper in May that year, during the Haj pilgrimage (the report doesn’t say what organistion placed the advert). The advert contained the following endearing sentiments by Ayatollah ul-Udhma Khameini:
- an attack on “bloodthirsty Zionists”
- describing Zionists as “a malignant cancerous tumour” who are “anti-human” and control the western media [Evidently not Rustbucket's section of it, eh?!]
- describing Israel as a “usurper regime” in the “heart of the Islamic region”.
The Authority accepted the Guardian’s defence that its acceptance of the ad did not suggest endorsement.
The Guardian also explained that it had taken the advert on the grounds that it was “within the bounds of taste and decency” [!!!] and that it had not considered it antisemitic [!!!]; moreover, the Guardian continued, the advert appeared following a period of “Israeli attacks on civilians in Lebanon” and was therefore “understandably vigorous and uncompromising”.
Rustbucket is quoted in the report as telling Hunt that in the light of his complaint the Guardian was “examining our procedure” in order “to make sure that any similar subjects in future would undergo proper scrutiny before appearing in the paper”.”
May 30th, 2010 at 1:04 am
Joshua said, “Jews are often not perceived as true Greeks, although many families have lived there since the 15th century”.
Mostly true. The overwhelming majority of Greek Jews, the Sephardim, have (or had) roots going back to the 15th century when they fled Spain. But the Romaniotes go back to earlier Byzantine times; I have met a few in New York.
May 31st, 2010 at 11:03 am
According to the activist Audrey Bomse, it was not a humanitarian mission but an attempt to break the blockade on Gaza. And she did not expect any violence. Now how delusional is all that?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/10196804.stm
Oh, I nearly forgot, the BBC refers to them as PEACE activists!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/10196420.stm
May 31st, 2010 at 11:27 am
DREAMS
My dream is seeing the one-time far-left activist Catherine Ashton in the docks in “s’Gravenhague” (The Hague) for providing Hamas and their ilk with aid, abettment and moral support – breach of international law! Duh!
May 31st, 2010 at 11:28 am
Unfortunately it looks like the ‘peace activists’ got exactly what they wanted by attacking the Israeli soldiers as soon as they boarded. The reporting on this is going to be woeful. 100s of activists attempt to stab, shoot and lynch Israeli soldiers and yet we all know that this will be a ‘massacre’ or ‘murder’. So depressing…
June 23rd, 2010 at 9:37 pm
For recent Jewish life in Greece see
http://abravanel.wordpress.com/2010/06/13/attacks-on-jews-gaza/#comment-138
Desecration of cemeteries, Holocaust memorials and other attacks on Jews.
By the way, I found no evidence that Pissias is actually a Professor anywhere — judging from what he says that is not the only LIE.
Many Greeks collaborated with the Nazis including the Royal Guard
– Tsoliades. After the liberation the collaborators (called “nationalists”) fought a long bloody civil war with those (called “communists”) who resisted the Nazis.