Latest antisemitic incidents in Greece

September 8: At least four banners featuring antisemitic signs were displayed by violent protesters against the Macedonia name deal in the northern Greek port city of Thessaloniki (h/t Leon Saltiel). They read “Talmud, Qabballah, the Enemy of the Humanity”, “Against New World Order (with a red line erasing the Star of David), “Here Greece, Here Orthodoxy. Death to Zionism” and “Rothschild, your end is coming”.

“Rothschild, your end ist coming”: One of the antisemitic banners displayed in Thessaloniki. More signs at antisemitism.org.il

Late August: Antisemitic graffiti was sprayed on the wall of a house located in a central street of Sparta. The inscription reads “Death to the Jews” (Θάνατος στους Εβραίους), skalalakonias blog has reported.

Late August: The Ioannina section of leftist “Popular Unity” party opposed in a press release the twinning agreement between the city of Ioannina (northern Greece) and the city of Kiryat Ono calling Israel a “terrorist state”.

August 31: Hate graffiti, propaganda material and several christian symbols were found outside the construction site of a state-funded mosque in Athens, lifo.gr has reported. Some of the flyers posted outside the construction site are clearly antisemitic: “Out with the Freemasons and the Jews” and “All bank are controlled by Zionists,” they read.

August 30: An antisemitic sticker referring to the “Jews and money” stereotype with the slur “Jew dog” was found near the Byzantine Museum of Thessaloniki. The sticker was posted by followers of “Father Cleomenis,” a man who dresses as a monk and posts videos of himself on social media vandalizing monuments, most recently the Holocaust memorial in the Central Greece city of Larissa (h/t Racist Crime Watch).

 

Greek Communist Party calls Israel a “state-killer”

Demonstrators protesting “the imperialist attack on Syria” in Athens. Screenshot via inter.kke.gr

The Greek Communist Party (KKE) organized a rally in central Athens to protest the US-led airstrikes against Syria on Saturday. The protesters chanted anti-U.S., anti-Nato and anti-EU slogans and even set an American flag on fire right in front of the American Embassy.

The Greek Communist Party issued a statement in which it blasted the SYRIZA-ANEL coalition government for “implicating” Greece “deeper in this massacre, on the account of the Greek capital, that is claiming its participation in the distribution of the loot and of the market shares.” It also accused the Greek government of cooperating militarily “with states-killers such as Israel.”

Communist Party chief Dimitris Koutsoumbas has accused Israel of engaging in “genocide” against Palestinians.

“Despite the problems facing our people, we must not underestimate the fact that a genocide is taking place in our neighborhood. Innocent children, women, families are being killed,” Koutsoumbas said during a meeting with former Greek President Karolos Papoulias in Athens four years ago.

 

 

BDS and hypocrisy: letter on Greek musicians Kotsiras and Tsaligopoulou

To

Mr. Naftali Bennett, Minister of Education and Diaspora Affairs
Mrs. Miri Regev, Minister of Culture and Sport
Mr. Yariv Levin, Minister of Tourism

Mrs. Bracha Cohen, The Jerusalem Centre for the Performing Arts
Mrs. Yasmine Levy, artist
Mr. Hichal Tarbut, Rishon le Zion
Mr. Idan Raichel, artist

Your Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

We the undersigned wish to inform you about a matter concerning the Greek musicians, Mr. Yiannis Kotsiras and Mrs. Eleni Tsaligopoulou, who have been invited to participate in concerts organized in Israel.

We strongly believe that cultural exchange is a positive mission as are the ties that it builds between the peoples of our two countries. This cooperation has perhaps the greatest potential to foster Israeli-Greek friendship.

However, for this to be so, the cooperation and friendship must also be mutual. And this is precisely the point of our concern.

In November 2015, Mr. Kotsiras and Ms. Tsaligopoulou were invited by the Embassy of Israel in Greece to perform in a concert together with the Israeli singer Idan Raichel. They accepted the invitation at first, only to change their minds and withdraw only a few hours before the concert, and with no explanation. As a result Mr. Raichel performed alone.

It turns out that they were approached by BDS activists in the interim. Given the silence of the two artists, there are two possible explanations for their decision, but speculation is not really required. The first, according to the media and blogs, is they withdrew to protest Israeli policy in Gaza (hardly a new issue); the second was they were informed of some pro-IDF statement made by Mr. Raichel (also irrelevant).

Greek antisemitism is pervasive and serious. It manifests itself in religious, political and media discourse. Antisemitic attitudes were rated at 67% by the 2015 ADL Global Survey. Antisemitism is the norm for most Greeks, regardless of their political convictions. Desecrations of Jewish sacred and cultural sites are common occurrences.

Greek music and culture is very popular in Israel. Greeks visiting Israel are impressed by the warmth of Israelis and their familiarity with Greek performers. Unfortunately, however, the reverse is not the case; few Israeli artists or, for that matter aspects of Jewish culture, are known in Greece. The reasons are obvious – but not pleasant.

Mr. Kotsiras and Mrs. Tsaligopoulou are not the most militant anti-Semites in Greece. Therefore, their selective and contradictory decision to perform in Israel after refusing to perform with an Israeli at home can be seen as 1) hypocritical, 2) purely financially motivated, and 3) cowardly.

Of course, the choice of artists who perform at those events is of the organizers solely. However, we strongly believe that any cooperation between Greeks and Israelis should be based on mutual respect and sincere appreciation. Greek antisemitism is too powerful to be defeated solely by good intentions.

Sincerely yours,

Andrea Gilbert, Jewish Expert, Greek Helsinki Monitor, andrea.gilbert [at] otenet.gr

Vassilis Tsarnas, Racist Crimes Watch administrator, Greek Helsinki Monitor, vasilistsarnas [at] gmail.com

Dimitri Kravvaris, Against Antisemitism blog, dimkrav [at] web.de

The two face artists

The two face artists
by Jean Cohen

Cohen.gr Friday 8.9.2017

I read that well-known Israeli singer Jasmine Levy has invited Greek singer Yiannis Kotsiras for a series of three concerts in Israel on the 25^th 26^th and the 28^th of October this year. So far so good.

The wheels start coming off the wagon, when you realize that Kotsiras is not exactly what could be called pro-Israeli. On the contrary. Taking under consideration his behavior on the 25^th of November 2015 I would classify him as anti-Israeli.

At the time Mr Kotsiras along singer with Eleni Tsaligopoulou were invited to appear at a concert organized by the Israeli embassy in Greece along with Israeli singer Idan Raichel.

A few hours before the opening of the concert the two Greek artists canceled their appearance. Exactly why they canceled was never explained, officially at least, since no announcement was made by the two singers.

Yet, from various posts on anti-Israeli blogs and sites, one could arrive to one of two conclusions, either they canceled because they disapproved of the treatment of Palestinians in Gaza, or they canceled because a few days before Israeli singer Raichel complimented the IDF, an act considered by them an abomination!!!

But the subject of this article is not Kotsiras or Tsaligopoulou, not even their unprofessional conduct of canceling their appearance a few hour before the curtain went up. As a matter of fact, their conduct should concern any music hall that would want to hire them in the future.

My subject is the two face Greek artists.

They are all willing to perform in Israeli and see their bank accounts get bigger and bigger, but they are very unwilling to say anything good about Israel once they return. On the contrary, they are more than willing to participate in any anti-Israeli activity be that a rally, a performance, or a mass protest against the “murderous state” Somebody must remind them of the saying “you cannot serve two masters”

Then same behavior can be found, by other artists as well, to name a few. Mikis Theodorakis (composer of Zorba the Greek) play writer Jacob Kampanelis (writer of the Ballad of Mauthausen) who declared publicly that he will never allow his work to be performed in Israel, until of course a few years  later he heard the figure involved and agreed.

Not to mention Stelios Kazantzidis who appearing in a Greek court and latter also on TV said “only I and Arafat are fighting the Jews”

Should I remind you of George Dallaras that so angered the Israeli public by his standard appearance in so many anti-Israeli concerts that they started breaking his records in public.

In all fairness I must remind my readers that the darling of the Israeli public Greek singer Elpida was the only one that I know of, there might be others too, that every time she came back from a concert in Israel she had nothing but praises for the country. And let us not forget that the 80’s was the most dark and frightening decade for Greek Israeli relations.

I wonder all these two face artist, and I’m sure there are more, what do they think when they look themselves in the mirror in the morning. How do they rationalize this kind of behavior?

What does their conscience say? Who do they think they are playing for fools? The Israelis or the Palestinians? Most probably they are sure they played both sides for suckers, before taking a quick glimpse at their fat bank account.

I have much more respect for the genuine anti-Semitic and anti-Israelis that are fighting Israel, with no “buts, reservations, footnotes etc.” than these kind of artists that want to “have the cake and eat it too”

After all it is a matter of personal ethics and morality regardless of the amount of money.

Οι διπρόσωποι καλλιτέχνες

Cohen.gr Παρασκευή 8.09.2017
Του Ζαν Κοέν

Δημοσιεύτηκε ότι η γνωστή Ισραηλινή τραγουδίστρια Jasmine Levy προσκάλεσε τον κ. Γιάννη Κότσιρα στο Ισραήλ για μια σειρά τριών εμφανίσεων μαζί της στις 25, 26 και 28 Οκτωβρίου. Μέχρι εδώ όλα καλά.

Εκεί που αρχίζει να στραβώνει το πράγμα είναι πως, από ότι φαίνεται, ο κ. Κότσιρας δεν είναι ιδιαίτερα φιλο-Ισραηλινός. Μάλιστα, θα σημείωνα πως είναι μάλλον εναντίον του Ισραήλ αν κρίνω από τη συμπεριφορά του τον Νοέμβριο του 2015.

Τότε, ο κ. Κότσιρας, μαζί με την κ. Ελένη Τσαλιγοπούλου είχαν προσκληθεί από την Ισραηλινή Πρεσβεία της Ελλάδα να εμφανιστούν σε μία συναυλία που είχε διοργανώσει και που θα εμφανιζόταν και ο Ισραηλινός τραγουδιστής Idan Raichel.

Λίγες ώρες πριν αρχίσει η συναυλία, οι δύο Έλληνες καλλιτέχνες ακύρωσαν την εμφάνισή τους. Το γιατί δεν το μάθαμε ποτέ, επισήμως τουλάχιστον, αφού δεν έβγαλαν καμία ανακοίνωση.

Από διάφορα δημοσιεύματα της εποχής στα αντί ισραηλινά blog και σελίδες, προέκυψαν δύο εκδοχές για την απόφαση τους: ή ακύρωσαν επειδή δεν συμφωνούσαν με την πολιτική του Ισραήλ, σχετικά με τη Γάζα και τους Παλαιστίνιους, ή διότι ο Ισραηλινός τραγουδιστής είχε εξάρει τον Ισραηλινό στρατό μερικές μέρες πριν πράξη, γεγονός που θεωρήθηκε από τους δύο καλλιτέχνες έγκλημα καθοσιώσεως!!!

Το θέμα μου όμως δεν είναι ούτε ο κ. Κότσιρας ούτε η κ. Τσαλιγοπούλου, ούτε καν η αντιεπαγγελματική τους συμπεριφορά ακυρώνοντας την εμφάνισή τους λίγες ώρες πριν την έναρξη της συναυλίας. Το τελευταίο, μάλιστα, ας το κρίνουν οι πίστες που θα τους προσλάβουν.

Το θέμα μου είναι οι διπρόσωποι καλλιτέχνες.

Την ίδια συμπεριφορά έχουν επιδείξει, για να ονομάσουμε μόνο μερικούς, στο παρελθόν και άλλοι καλλιτέχνες. Ο Μ. Θεοδωράκης, ο θεατρικός συγγραφέας Ιακ. Καμπανέλης (η μπαλάντα του Μαουτχάουζεν) που είχε ζητήσει να μην παιχτεί ποτέ στο Ισραήλ το έργο του μέχρι που άκουσε τι αμοιβή θα υπάρξει και δέχτηκε.

Να θυμίσουμε τον Στέλιο Καζαντζίδη ο οποίος ενώπιον ελληνικού Δικαστηρίου και μετά την δίκη σε τηλεοπτική συνέντευξη είπε: “Μόνον εγώ και ο Αραφάτ πολεμάμε τους Εβραίους”….

Για να μην αναφέρω τον Νταλάρα που τόσο νεύριασε τον ισραηλινό λαό με τη μόνιμη σχεδόν συμμετοχή του σε αντί-Ισραηλινές συναυλίες. Το γεγονός αυτό ώθησε αρκετούς Ισραηλινούς να σπάνε τους δίσκους του στον δρόμο.

Όλοι τους είναι πρόθυμοι να πάνε στο Ισραήλ για να μεγαλώσουν τους τραπεζικούς τους λογαριασμούς, αλλά όχι μόνον απρόθυμοι να πουν μια καλή κουβέντα για το Ισραήλ άμα τη επιστροφή τους, αλλά τουναντίον είναι πρόθυμοι να συμμετάσχουν σε οπουδήποτε αντί-Ισραηλινή εκδήλωση «για το κράτος-δολοφόνο». Κάποιος θα πρέπει να τους θυμίσει την ελληνική παροιμία «ή παππάς παππάς ή ζευγάς ζευγάς.»

Εδώ για το δίκαιο της υπόθεσης πρέπει να θυμίσω την αγαπημένη των Ισραηλινών στη δεκαετία του 80, Ελπίδα. Αυτή ήταν η μόνη που εγώ ξέρω, μπορεί να υπάρχουν και άλλοι, που κάθε φορά που γύριζε έλεγε τα καλύτερα και μάλιστα στη δεκαετία του 80 «που τα έσκιαζε η φοβέρα και τα πλάκωνε η σκλαβιά» όσον αφορά το Ισραήλ.

Αναρωτιέμαι όλοι αυτοί οι διπρόσωποι καλλιτέχνες, και είμαι σίγουρος υπάρχουν και άλλοι λιγότερο γνωστοί, όταν σηκώνονται το πρωί και βλέπουν τον εαυτό τους στον καθρέφτη πως δικαιολογούν την πράξη τους αυτή;

Τη λέει η συνείδηση τους; Ποιους κοροϊδεύουν τους Ισραηλινούς ή τους Παλαιστίνιους; Μάλλον και τους δύο και ίσως να σκέφτονται ότι πιάσανε «κότσο» και τους δύο, πριν ρίξουν μια φευγαλέα ματιά στο τραπεζικό τους λογαριασμό, όλο ικανοποίηση.

Έχω πολύ περισσότερο σεβασμό στους γνήσιους αντί-Ισραηλινούς που πολεμάνε το κράτος του Ισραήλ χωρίς ναι μεν αλλά, υποσημειώσεις και επιφυλάξεις, παρά στους καλλιτέχνες αυτής της μορφής, που θέλουν «και την πίτα ολόκληρη και το σκύλο χορτάτο».

Αν μη τι άλλο είναι θέμα ήθους και ας είναι “πολλά τα λεφτά Άρη”.

Far-right Golden Dawn MP calls Israel ‘eternal enemy’ of Greeks

Golden Dawn MP Christos Pappas wearing a nazi fez (tn: actually this “fez” was part of the uniform of the 13th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Handschar) and a T-Shirt calling for “Uprising For An Independant Palestine.” Via I Can’t Relax In Greece & Abravanel, the Blog

 

Via The Times of Israel

Greek Defense Minister Panos Kammenos called on the Justice Ministry to take action against a neo-Nazi lawmaker after he made anti-Israel comments in parliament.

Speaking during a debate in parliament on Monday, Christos Pappas, from the Golden Dawn party, called Israel an “eternal enemy of Greece and Orthodoxy,” a reference to Greece’s official church.

[…]

Kammenos has himself in the past been criticized for anti-Semitic comments, after claiming in 2014 that Greek Jews paid fewer taxes than other Greeks, but since taking up the position of defense minister has overseen increasingly warm ties with Israel.

Read more

• The leader of the right-wing Independent Greeks Party, Panos Kammenos, is not the only Greek politician who has been accused of disseminating antisemitic rumors or trivializing the Holocaust. To mention but two examples: Dimitris Kammenos of the Independent Greeks Party was forced to resign after receiving ministerial post in September 2015 over an outcry about a series of anti-Semitic and homophobic tweets. Panagiotis Sgouridis, another Independent Greeks MP, abused the memory of the Holocaust in June 2015 by mentioning Gaza during a speech about the murdered Jews of Kavala and saying that “victims become bullies.”
• Syriza Party has called Israel’s Operation Protective Edge against Hamas in Gaza two years ago “a crime against humanity”. Palestinian terrorist Leila Khaled met with Dimitris Papadimoulis, Syriza MEP and Vice-President of the European Parliament, in its headquarters in Brussels in February 2016. Syriza, a left-wing party that despite its past support for the Palestinians has sought to strengthen ties with Israel, has called Khaled in a statement issued after the meeting an “activist with a historical role in the Palestinian Resistance.”

Vice-President of the EU Parliament and Syriza MEP meets with Palestinian terrorist Leila Khaled

Papadimoulis with Khaled on February 10, 2016 (Photo via http://syriza.eu/images/PAPADHMOULIS/PapadimoulisHaled.jpg). Khaled poses in scarf with the PFLP logo: Inside a red circle, a black arrow points from a white semi-circle to a map of Israel and the territories. Below the arrow, on the right side, is a green dot. The arrow symbolizes the return of Palestinian refugees. Red symbolizes the group’s Marxist-Leninist heritage. Description via http://archive.adl.org/terrorism/symbols/popular_front_pa1.html

Palestinian terrorist Leila Khaled met with Dimitris Papadimoulis, Syriza MEP and Vice-President of the European Parliament, in its headquarters in Brussels on February 10, 2016. Leila Khaled was accompanied by a PFLP delegation. Syriza, a left-wing party that despite its past support for the Palestinians has sought to strengthen ties with the Jewish state, has called Khaled in a statement issued after the meeting an “activist with a historical role in the Palestinian Resistance.”

Khaled is member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a Palestinian Marxist-Leninist and nationalist organization founded in 1967. PFLP is considered as a terrorist organization by the Council of the European Union, since its members have carried out numerous hijackings, assassinations, bombings and paramilitary operations against civilian and military targets in Israel. Khaled herself has been involved twice in airline hijackings and is an active supporter of the BDS movement.

One can therefore raise the question over the legitimacy of the visit of the PFLP delegation at the EU Parliament. How can it be that the delegation of a terror group obtained the right to enter the EU Parliament and meet with its Vice-President? Does Syriza seek to compensate the ongoing cooperation between Greece and Israel with an implicit tolerance of Palestinian radicalism?

After her visit to the EU Parliament in February, Leila Khaled has launched a tour of Germany, Sweden and Austria, meeting with Palestinian communities and supporters of the Palestinian cause. In Wuppertal, Germany, she spoke in a Greek restaurant together with a speaker who has justified terror attacks against Jews in Israel. During an event in Vienna, Austria, she accused Israel of being responsible for “a Holocaust” against the Palestinians and justified the ongoing knife attacks on Israeli citizens.

A letter to the editor concerning the incident in the Aegean flight A3 928 to Tel Aviv

Against Antisemitism – Ενάντια στον αντισημιτισμό republishes a letter to the editor of Zoe Dorit Eliou, passenger of the Aegean flight A3 928 from Athens to Tel Aviv, in which she criticizes the coverage of the incident involving Israeli passengers in Huffingtonpost.gr. Zoe Dorit Eliou refutes the accusations of racism as follows:

Dear Editor,

the article you wrote about the 1/4/15 incident on the Aegean flight from Athens-Tel Aviv was completely distorted and one sided as I was on the plane and this not what I saw or experienced.

Indeed, there was tension and anxiety that began already in the waiting hall, before embarkation. The reason for that had to do with the behavior of one of the men (I did not see the other one) which was very provocative and frightening. He looked at us with a chilling hostility and cold smile that was ominous. He wore a military type shirt, waited to embark last and seemed ready for a disturbance.

The passengers sat down, and some people very quitely and discretely approached the crew which refused to address the situation. As a result, some people wanted to get off the plane as it was ready to leave. There was a commotion but no screaming or fighting. Most everybody sat down or was just raised in their seats to observe what was going on. There was a language barrier as many of the Israelis did not speak English and the crew was not particularly reassuring but rather derogatory in Greek (I speak Greek, English and Hebrew fluently). The 2 passengers were taken off and there was a cursory security check on the overhead items.

Later the security agent told me that there was a canine examination of the luggage before boarding but he did not communicate that in English to the passengers. In fact, he gave me permission to say so in Hebrew. Finally the security agent was screaming at the Israelis that if they did not like it they could get off and buy a ticket elsewhere. He was rather rude. The security did not explain that the 2 passengers were further investigated and they were ok and blamed the Israelis that they, the Israelis, were the only reason they were taken off.

I regret to say that your article is divisive, and reflects poor and one sided journalism which further polarizes the situation between the two traumatized nations. You clearly had an agenda, since the article did not speak to any of the passengers, except the crew and amnesty international.

Profiling is indeed an awful way to relate to one another as human beings and yet as humans under stress we resort to very primal judgments. The context is always important before we judge a reaction, and the overreaction of the passengers was not without a context. There were many other passengers on the flight that looked “arab” on the plane but they were not hostile or provocative. I hope you can amend your article to include a more balanced and whole story, rather than a presentation of an agenda.

Sincerely, Dr. Eliou

Source: huffingtonpost.gr (5/1/2016)

Dr. Eliou sent to us the following additional remark:

Please note that no one knew the nationality of the 2 passengers ahead of time. Also, Aegean offered them to leave the flight, pay for their hotel and fly them the next day. They were not forcibly removed from the flight. I thought that if everything checked out they should have continued the flight and whoever objected could have left themselves. I think Aegean made a mistake by removing them and offering them an alternative accommodation and flight, and then blaming it on the Israeli passengers, almost like a set up. In addition, passengers tried to communicate with them to break the ice but they refused to speak. I felt the article had an agenda. I think it was unfortunate but could have been easily resolved with some communication between the passengers so that everyone cold relax.

Greek FM Nikos Kotzias supports recognizing “Palestine”

FM Nikos Kotzias (2013)

In a recent speech in Parliament during the debate on the budget for 2016, Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias said Greece “supports – with no ifs ands or buts – the creation of a Palestinian state. It maintains brotherly relations with the Palestinian people, and the Hellenic Parliament will soon, it is my hope, recognize Palestine.” He also announced that he recently signed “a decision committing the whole of the Greece public sector to refer to Palestine as Palestine in all cases.”

Kotzias defended then the “sincerity” and the “straightforwardness” of his “multidimensional policy”: “As soon as we see the Americans, we are pro-American. Next, in Moscow, they call us pro-Russian. We go to China, we are called pro-Chinese. In Iran, pro-Iran, and so on. The truth is simple: We defend the country’s values, interests and rights everywhere and at all times, without exception.”

Back in June 2015, Greek FM referred to his Palestinian counterpart Riyad al-Maliki as “His Excellency, the foreign minister of Palestine” during a press conference in Athens and promised to create a “Friends of Palestine” group in the European Union. The Times of Israel also reported that Greek PM Alexis Tsipras mentioned the “State of Palestine” in a tweet about his meeting with al-Maliki. The tweet was deleted a few hours after it was posted and replaced with a similar tweet that merely referred to “Palestine.” Tsipras’s diplomatic adviser also called the Israeli embassy in Athens and apologized for the use of the term “State of Palestine.”

Greek vocalists cancel their performance with Idan Raichel after BDS pressure

Yannis Kotsiras and Eleni Tsaligopoulou, amongst Greece’s most popular singers, were to join on stage the famous Israeli musician Idan Raichel on November 4^th in the Gazarte venue, in central Athens. “A celebration of the Mediterranean soul” was one of a series of cultural events scheduled to take place in order to mark the 25th anniversary since the start of Greece’s and Israel’s diplomatic relations.

Only a few hours before their appearance, the two Greek vocalists announced on their official Facebook pages [Kotsiras] [Tsaligopoulou], that they won’t participate in the scheduled concert in Gazarte. They didn’t specify the reason of this cancellation. Idan Raichel nevertheless performed alone.

What happened? Two days before the concert, the small far-left Trotskyist group “Internationalist Movement Against The War” (Greek: “Antipolemiki Diethnistiki Kinisi”, abbreviated ADK) called upon both Greek artists not to perform with someone who “supports the Israeli torturers”. Furthermore, ADK suggested that the state of Israel aims to use cultural events in order to promote a positive image of the country, while it “persecutes” the Palestinians and the Israeli workers.

Other posts on the same blog refer to “Nazi-Zionists”.

The ADK call has been reposted by the pro-BDS website info-war.gr. The owner of info-war.gr is Greek journalist and filmmaker Aris Chatzistefanou, a participant of the “Gaza Flotilla” who has accused former PM George Papandreou of “slavish submission” towards Israel. Among the coalition organizations participating in the “Gaza Flotilla” was radical Islamic organization IHH (Insani Yardim Vakfi, IHH, “humanitarian relief fund”).

Many fans of Yannis Kotsiras and Eleni Tsaligopoulou reacted enthusiastically on Facebook to their messages of cancellation. Others strongly protested their decision accusing especially Y. Kotsiras of hypocrisy (he has already performed in Israel).

• Idan Raichel’s opinion regarding torture (NB: “Captain George” is IDF interrogator Doron Zahavi):

Source: http://www.idanraichelproject.com/en/media-press/media