There are 4 items in this pre-Shabbat posting:
- Joe Weiser in the Santa Fe New Mexican.
- Be sure to visit the Fractured Faiths Exhibit at the NM History Museum.
- One last chance to hear the Desert Chorale’s production, Sephardic Legacy, August 2.
- Take Action: Protest the highly anti-Semitic Camp Lovewave July 23 show on KSFR.
- Yasher koach to Joe Weiser for his letter to the editor in the New Mexican on July 29, 2016 – a good example of how to write a positive letter regarding Israel’s advanced human rights activities:
A better plan
Sometimes the bits and pieces of life come together to form a moment of clarity: for example, in the article by David Dishneau (“Deaf teacher’s quest for armed service inspires students,” June 26) about a teacher and students at the Maryland School for the Deaf who are preparing for service in the U.S. military. In the story we read that their model for service is the Israel Defense Forces which have “always recruited deaf volunteers.”
There are over 100 deaf soldiers in the Israel Defense Forces, and it announced a “sign-language course to help commanders communicate better.” Wow! Deaf soldiers. We have read about computer geeks and nerds managing the cyberwarfare program and autistic soldiers contributing to data analysis. Women flying F-16s and leading combat infantry units is old news. LGBT contributions are even older news. It seems to me that, in Israel, everyone is important. Everyone is valuable. There is talent everywhere that should be embraced and nurtured. I think we would all be better if we followed this plan.
Joe Weiser, Santa Fe
2. Don’t miss the “Fractured Faiths: Spanish Judaism, The Inquisition, and New World Identities” exhibit at the New Mexico History Museum, open through December 31, 2016. This is truly a wonderful opportunity.
3. Associated with the Fractured Faiths exhibit, the Desert Chorale presents a program of choral music, Sephardic Legacy, featuring Vanessa Paloma. There is a pre-concert brunch with a lecture by Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival’s executive director, Steve Ovitsky, this Sunday, July 31st at 11 am. The concert on July 31 is sold out; you can still get tickets for the final concert on Tuesday, August 2 at 8:00 p.m.
4. Take Action: This past Saturday, July 23, an egregious anti-Semitic Jewish conspiracy interview was held on KSFR by “Camp Lovewave.” You can listen to this interview of Christopher Bollyn here (it will only be available for another week at this location). Start listening at about the 24th minute to the end of the program. Bollyn claims that it is Israelis and conspirators from the US that created terrorism and fomented the war on terror.
According to Bollyn this all started with the Rothschilds banking dynasty which still controls the world through controlling the media. 90-95% of media outlets are owned by 6 corporations in the US today, he claims. “The media people are funded and created by the Rothschilds…in order to control public opinion.” He claims that they are part of the cover-up that carried out 9/11. The Rothschilds, he claims, starting in the 1760s, he set up banks to control the world, founded Israel, and “set-up the first prime minister.” “The State of Israel is a…project of the Rothschild family…the international Zionist enterprise.” And this “power over the media” controls what people think.
Bollyn claims that “Zionists” and the controlling Likud party has continuously defeated democracy in Israel, and has undue influence bringing in conspirators like all of our past presidents since the 1970s. The Likud Party was created by the Zionist terrorists of the 1940s…the people who ran terrorist operations that created the state of Israel…in 1973 created the party…and in 1977 took power and have been in charge ever since.” “There’s a very small group surrounded by Netanyahu…that planned 9/11 back in the 1970s.”
The hosts egged on this conspiracy theory nonsense, including the theory by Bollyn that the Arabs who were cheering the destruction of the twin towers “were Israelis dressed up as Arabs…found to be five Israeli intelligence agents…working for an Israeli front company…that was deeply involved in the 9/11 conspiracy…Israelis in great numbers [were] connected to the 9/11 conspiracy.”
Bollyn is wrong on so many of his assertions – he even gets many of his basic facts wrong: e.g., he claims there are 5 million Israelis today (the real figure: almost 8.2 million). He claims Likud has been in power since 1977 (since 1992 there have been Labor and Kadima party administrations of Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres, Ehud Barak, Ariel Sharon, and Ehud Olmert interspersed with Benjamin Netanyahu).
Take Action:
- Bollyn will be at the Santa Fe Library on Washington St. on Saturday, July 30th from 2-5 presenting these conspiracy arguments. If you can attend, correct the facts for the listening public (you won’t be able to change the minds of Bollyn, we’re sure) and denigrate this anti-Semite’s bigoted conspiracy views.
- Write to the KSFR general manager,Tazbah McCullah (tmccullah@ksfr.org), and co-program manager for talk radio, MA LeBlanc (merrylin@ksfr.org), to protest the perpetuation of this conspiracy theory bigotry. This show’s hosts are perpetuating anti-Semitism through their interview and assertions that Bollyn’s views have validity. They should be censured for this outrageous interview.
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Hold the date: Sunday, September 25, 1-5 p.m., Israel Advocacy Workshop with ADL-New Mexico.