LAST MINUTE UPDATE: Congratulations to the Mayor of Madrid, who proposes to twin his city with Tel Aviv

Paris-Barcelona-Tel Aviv, 9 February 2023

With a letter addressed to Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, the Mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau, shamelessly announced that her City Council decided – by unilateral decree, without a Council vote – to break its 1998 twinning agreement with Tel Aviv.

This decision came in spite of widespread protests in January, especially from the local Jewish community, because the planned date for a “de-twinning” vote was January 27, International Holocaust Remembrance Day. All were hoping that Colau would backpedal on this anti-Zionist = antisemitic intent.

Read more: Wiesenthal Centre Disgusted at Barcelona Mayor’s...

Paris, 6 February 2023

After seven years monitoring hate at the Cairo International Book Fair (CIBF) for the Wiesenthal Centre, Dr Shimon Samuels noted that “this year has seen a tsunami of Arabic editions of Adolf Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’, the Tsarist secret police forgery ‘The Protocols of the Elders of Zion’, Henry Ford’s ‘The International Jew’ and Guy Carr’s ‘Pawns in the Game’ (the ‘implementation of the Protocols’), spread out along a dozen of stands.”

What is particularly worrying in this CIBF is that, among the listed publishers, figure not only the usual purveyors of hate, conspiracy theories and antisemitism – such as Dar Al-Kitab Al-Araby – but also apparent newcomers in the business, who consider that these books meet the local market’s demand.

Since the inception of Arab nationalism, ‘Mein Kampf’ is being peddled as a classic staple for Egyptian families. How could academics, journalists or diplomats really find justification in Arab anti-Zionism – and claim it is not antisemitism – if the non-religious political bestseller in the Arab world is a book that calls for the extermination of the Jews?

Read more: Antisemitism Goes Viral in Cairo Book Fair

“This is our third success this month, with Barcelona and Avignon.”

Paris, 31 January 2023

The Mayor of Lyon has cancelled the conference – planned for 1 February – entitled “30 Years After Signing the Oslo Accords: Overview on Palestine,” featuring exclusively pro-Palestinian invitees for a one-sided Israel-bashing hate-fest.

Among the speakers was Salah Hamouri, presented as a “Franco-Palestinian lawyer... former political prisoner.”

Read more: UPDATE: Following Wiesenthal Centre and Jewish...

Paris, 29 January 2023

The Wiesenthal Centre recognizes the city of Lyon as having been one of the strongholds of anti-Nazi Resistance during World War Two. It is also where SS and Gestapo officer Klaus Barbie, a.k.a. “the Butcher of Lyon”, was responsible for torturing and killing up to 4,000 adults and children and deporting 7,500 Jews to their death in Auschwitz. It took 40 years to track him down and bring him to justice.

The past week was marked by the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which coincides with the 78th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau by the Red Army. Palestinian terrorists decided to mark the date by launching rockets on Israel and letting loose gunmen to kill Jews.

Read more: Wiesenthal Centre Open Letter to Mayor of Lyon:...

Paris, 21 January 2023

The Barcelona Municipal Council claims to have postponed the vote to break the “twinning” between the capital of Catalonia and Tel Aviv, to an agreed date in February.

The anti-Israel faction professes, contemptuously, “so as not to coincide with International Holocaust Remembrance Day.”

Read more: Update: Following Spanish Jewish Community and...