For
the 14th year, the Simon Wiesenthal Centre is the only non-governmental
organization to monitor antisemitic hate and incitement to violence on the
stands of the Frankfurt Book Fair, (FBF), the world’s largest with over 7,000
exhibitors from more than 100 countries.
Continuing
its cooperation of last year with the Wiesenthal Centre, on the 18 October eve
of this 2016 Fair opening, the FBF authorities made a sweep, confiscating several
clearly antisemitic titles from stands identified as violating their
exhibitors’ contractual commitment against incitement to hate or violence.
(Click on photo for hi-res)
The
Centre’s Director for International Relations, Dr. Shimon Samuels noted that
these apparently included:
Egypt
Collective stand (Hall 5.1 E146):
–
The reprinted classic “In Hidden Corners: Revealing Secrets of the Jews”,
published by the Egyptian National Library and Archives (Dar Al-Kitab) in 2014.
This is based on “Jews and Opportunists: Judaism in Egypt and Syria” by Georges
Corneilhan of 1893, translated from the original French into Arabic by Naguib
Al-Hajj in 1989. This new edition reappeared at the 2014 Kuwait and 2015 Cairo
Book Fairs.
(SEE
PHOTO 1 on PANEL)
Syria
collective stand (Hall 5.1/A 152), with two titles of Dar Ghar Hira Publishing:
–
“The Day of Rage – End of the State of Israel” by Dr. Safar bin Abdul-Rahman
al-Hawali <http://www.alhawali.com/main/5898-2–يوم-الغضب-هل-بدأ-بانتفاضة-رجب–.html>
–
“The Tidings in Sabbatai Zevi and Abdullah Ibn Saba” by Ahmed Mahmoud El
Shorbagy (Jewish Conspiracies against Muslim world)
<http://www.gharhira.com/arbook/g-3.html>
Syrian
books, for the last few years, were largely displayed on the Lebanon collective
stand under Beirut accommodation addresses. The present stand would seem to
indicate the current empowered role of the Assad regime.
(SEE
PHOTOS 2 and 3 on PANEL)
“Our
own monitoring uncovered the titles below that eluded the official action,”
stated Samuels:
Egypt
(Hall 5.1 A141) Sama for Publishing and Distribution, Cairo:
–
“Marionette” by Rida Suleiman (2014) (Who was pulling the strings behind the
Egyptian revolution of 2011, book cover features Star of David). The author
claims that the Egyptian (and Arab) revolutions were just steps in a greater
plot to destabilize those countries for the security of Israel and relocate the
Palestinians in Gaza to Sinai.
–
“The Road to Rumiyah” by Dr. Fawzy Suwaid 2015 (Rumiyah is Classical Arabic for
Rome). This novel presents religious figures interpreting religious
prophecies/texts to justify their own causes at the expense of others.
(SEE
PHOTOS 4 and 5 on PANEL)
Egypt
(Hall 5.1 A 147) Al Ahram:
–
“Hijacking the Revolution…The Conspiracy Documents from January 25 until June
3” by Atef Al Ghomri, Al Ahram, 2015. This book features the US as behind the
Arab Spring revolutions to create a Greater Middle East project with Israeli
aggrandizement as the objective.
–
“The American Agenda in the Maghreb countries… Strategies to Achieve Colonial
Control” by Dr. Ali Mohammed Salem El-Ahwal, Publisher New Link International,
2016.
–
On 11 October 2016, the Egyptian Ministry of Culture honoured novelist Dr.
Sherif Shaban for “his effort to enrich the cultural life in Egypt through
his novel ‘Daughter of Zion’, the first Egyptian novel describing the weakness
of the Israeli society”. The story opens with the anti-Semitic Damascus
Blood Libel affair, describing the incident and then continues to the Protocols
of the Elders of Zion.
Samuels
asked the Ministry of Culture representative if “Daughter of Zion” was
exhibited on any of the Egyptian stands? He was directed to Al Ahram (see
above), where he was given a CD-ROM on which it is featured.
(SEE
PHOTOS 6, 7 and 8 on PANEL)
Last
year, all 15 Iranian stands, including the Government collective, were closed
in
protest against the Fair’s speaking invitation to death-threat victim and
author of “The Satanic Verses” Salman Rushdie, proclaiming it “an insult to
Islam.”
This
year saw 23 post-sanctions stands bustling with European and Asian publishers
and literary agents:
Iran
Collective stand (Hall 5.0 B136):
–
“Christian Zionism” by Mohammad Rajabi, Publisher Islamic Revolution Document
Center, Tehran, 2012. <http://www.irdc.ir/fa/book/859/default.aspx>
–
“Christian Zionists in the United States” by Ismael Shafiee Sarvestani,
Publisher Mouood, Tehran, 2014.
<http://www.mouood.org/arabic/itemlist/category/129-امسیحیون-المتصهینون.html>
(SEE
PHOTOS 9 and 10 on PANEL)
Samuels
entered into conversation with a stand official, who stressed the importance of
de-Zionizing Christians, When asked whether there were not Israelis and
Palestinians who wanted an end to the conflict, he responded in front of
witnesses: “the Zionist state must be destroyed and Iran will stop any peace
agreement by Palestinians who would betray Islam,” pointing to another volume:
–
“Palestine”, edited by Ayotollah Khamenei, 4th edition, the Supreme Leader
presents methods and tactics to annihilate Israel. Its introduction is by Ali
Akbar Velayati, former Iranian Minister of Defence, indicted by INTERPOL for
complicity in the 1994 AMIA Jewish Centre bombing in Buenos Aires, Argentina,
leaving 85 dead and 300 wounded.
(SEE
PHOTO 11 on PANEL)
Not
in violation, but deeply offensive to Jewish visitors are:
South
Africa (Hall 5.1. B130) Porcupine Press:
–
“Why Israel? The Anatomy of Zionist Apartheid” by Suraya Dadoo and Firoz Osman
–
“To the Ancient Land” by David Zeffert
Both
spew a venom that precludes conflict resolution and could be understood as
condoning antisemitic anti-Zionist violence.
(SEE
PHOTO 12 and 13 on PANEL)
Turkey
(Hall 3.0 J11) collective stand:
In
the current atmosphere of identity theft of Jewish heritage in UNESCO, it was
disheartening to find a charming children’s booklet, entitled “Battuta the
Turtle in Jerusalem”, directed to 7+ readers, that deletes Judaism’s 3,500 year
link with its holiest site, the “Kotel” or the Western Wall of the Temple
Mount, by renaming it the “Buraq Wall” (or the “Buraq Plaza”).
(SEE
PHOTO 14 on PANEL)
In
2011, Samuels found another booklet at the Frankfurt Book Fair entitled “The
Buraq Wall.” This Hamas-backed publication argued that on his night flight from
Mecca to heaven the Prophet Mohammed tethered his winged steed, Buraq, to that
Wall. The book proceeds to a litany of Jewish crimes, but mostly their
conspiracy to steal the Buraq Wall or Plaza that can only be returned to the
embrace of Islam.
(SEE
PHOTO 15 on PANEL)
The
Wiesenthal Centre hoped that “the author of ‘Battuta the Turtle in Jerusalem’,
Zeynep Sevde, and the publisher, Taze Kitap of Istanbul, would revise the text
to accommodate the three monotheistic religions of Jerusalem in respect to
their respective narratives.”
Samuels
recalled, “as we warned in last year’s report, German and other Jihadist
teachers are known to bring their students to the Fair, seeking inflammatory
materials, which can result in potentially dangerous consequences.”
“The
Wiesenthal’s Centre’s ‘Worst Offender Award 2016’ goes to Iran and ‘Runner Up’
to Egypt,” he announced.
