Life and writing
Poller was born in Jessup, Pennsylvania. [1] She received a BA in history from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and a MA in writing seminars from the Johns Hopkins University. [1] She began her literary career in 1966 with the publication of the short story "Wedding Party in Piazza Navona." [1]
Poller has later contributed to English-language publications such as The Wall Street Journal , National Review , FrontPage Magazine , The New York Sun , Commentary , New English Review , Middle East Quarterly , American Thinker , The Jerusalem Post , The Times of Israel and many others. [1] Her writings include observations on society and politics, including a perceived anti-Israeli bias in France, [3] the Muhammad al-Durrah incident [4] —a "myth" and "a crudely fabricated video" as she described it in her 2014 book about the incident, [5] and anti-Jewish violence in France [6] such as the murder of Ilan Halimi. [7] In addition to being a writer, Poller is also a novelist, author of illustrated books for youths, and a translator, notably of the philosopher, Emmanuel Levinas. [8]
She participated in the international counter-jihad conferences in Brussels in 2007 [9] and in 2012, [10] and has been on the advisory board of the International Free Press Society. [11]
Antisemitism has increased greatly in the Arab world since the beginning of the 20th century, for several reasons: the dissolution and breakdown of the Ottoman Empire and traditional Islamic society; European influence, brought about by Western imperialism and Arab Christians; Nazi propaganda and relations between Nazi Germany and the Arab world; resentment over Jewish nationalism; the rise of Arab nationalism; and the widespread proliferation of anti-Jewish and anti-Zionist conspiracy theories.
The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), officially the Middle East Media and Research Institute, is an American non-profit press monitoring and analysis organization that was co-founded by Israeli ex-intelligence officer Yigal Carmon and Israeli-American political scientist Meyrav Wurmser in 1997. It publishes and distributes free copies of media reports that have been translated into English—primarily from Arabic and Persian, but also from Urdu, Turkish, Pashto, and Russian.
Aryeh Eldad is an Israeli physician, politician and former medical officer.
Media coverage of the Arab–Israeli conflict by journalists in international news media has been said to be biased by both sides and independent observers. These perceptions of bias, possibly exacerbated by the hostile media effect, have generated more complaints of partisan reporting than any other news topic and have led to a proliferation of media watchdog groups.
Gisèle Littman, better known by her pen name Bat Ye'or, is an Egyptian-born British-French author, who promotes the Eurabia conspiracy theory in her writings about modern Europe, in which she argues that Islam, anti-Americanism and antisemitism hold sway over European culture and politics.
New antisemitism is the concept that a new form of antisemitism which developed in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, tends to manifest itself as anti-Zionism and criticism of the Israeli government. The concept is included in some definitions of antisemitism, such as the working definition of antisemitism and the 3D test of antisemitism. The concept dates to the early 1970s, although the identification of anti-Zionism with antisemitism has "long been de rigueur in Jewish communal and broader pro-Israel circles".
The murder of Ilan Halimi was the kidnapping, torture, and murder of a young Frenchman of Moroccan Jewish ancestry in France in 2006. Halimi was kidnapped on 21 January 2006 by a group of Muslims calling themselves the Gang of Barbarians. The kidnappers, believing that all Jews are rich, repeatedly contacted the victim's modestly placed family demanding very large sums of money. Halimi was held captive and tortured for three weeks, and died of his injuries. The case drew national and international attention as an example of antisemitism in France.
Manfred Gerstenfeld was an Austrian-born Israeli author and chairman of the steering committee of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. He founded and directed the center's post-Holocaust and anti-Semitism program.
Robert Solomon Wistrich was a scholar of antisemitism, considered one of the world's foremost authorities on antisemitism.
Hadassa Ben-Itto was an Israeli author and jurist. She was best known for her bestselling book The Lie That Wouldn't Die: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
Andrew G. Bostom is an American author, medical doctor and critic of Islam. He is a retired associate professor of medicine at Brown University Medical School.
Caroline B. Glick is an Israeli-American conservative journalist and author. She writes for Israel Hayom, Breitbart News, The Jerusalem Post, Jewish News Syndicate and Maariv. She is an adjunct senior fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs at the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Security Policy, and directs the Israeli Security Project at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. In 2019, she was a candidate on the Israeli political party New Right's list for the Knesset.
Antisemitic tropes or antisemitic canards are "sensational reports, misrepresentations, or fabrications" that are defamatory towards Judaism as a religion or defamatory towards Jews as an ethnic or religious group. Since the Middle Ages, such reports have been a recurring motif of broader antisemitic conspiracy theories.
Racism in the Palestinian territories encompasses all forms and manifestations of racism experienced in the Palestinian Territories, of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem, irrespective of the religion, colour, creed, or ethnic origin of the perpetrator and victim, or their citizenship, residency, or visitor status. It may refer to Jewish settler attitudes regarding Palestinians as well as Palestinian attitudes to Jews and the settlement enterprise undertaken in their name.
Criticism of Israel is a subject of journalistic and scholarly commentary and research within the scope of international relations theory, expressed in terms of political science. Israel has faced international criticism since its declaration of independence in 1948 relating to a variety of issues, many of which are centered around human rights violations in its occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Counter-jihad is a self-titled political current loosely consisting of authors, bloggers, think tanks, street movements and so on linked by beliefs that view Islam not as a religion but as an ideology that constitutes an existential threat to Western civilization. Consequently, counter-jihadists consider all Muslims as a potential threat, especially when they are already living within Western boundaries. Western Muslims accordingly are portrayed as a "fifth column", collectively seeking to destabilize Western nations' identity and values for the benefit of an international Islamic movement intent on the establishment of a caliphate in Western countries. The counter-jihad movement has been variously described as anti-Islamic, Islamophobic, inciting hatred against Muslims, and far-right. Influential figures in the movement include the bloggers Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer in the US, and Geert Wilders and Tommy Robinson in Europe.
Sarah Halimi was a retired French doctor and schoolteacher who was attacked and killed in her apartment on 4 April 2017. Circumstances surrounding the killing—including the fact that Halimi was Jewish, and that the assailant had shouted Allahu akbar during the attack and afterward proclaimed "I killed the Shaitan"—cemented the public perception, particularly among the French Jewish community, that it was a stark example of antisemitism in modern France.
Mireille Knoll was an 85-year-old French Jewish woman, and Holocaust survivor who was murdered in her Paris apartment on 23 March 2018. The murder has been officially described by French authorities as an antisemitic hate crime, which has since been on the rise in France.
The counter-jihad movement in France consists of various organisations and individuals such as Riposte Laïque and Résistance Républicaine, led by Pierre Cassen and Christine Tasin respectively, Observatoire de l'Islamisation, and other groups such as those founded by Alain Wagner. The movement has cooperated with the Bloc Identitaire, Daniel Pipes and the Middle East Forum, Stop Islamisation of Europe, and has organised events such as the "Apéro Géant: saucisson et pinard", a happy hour gathering of wine and deli meat cold cuts whose ingredients include pork.
The International Civil Liberties Alliance (ICLA) is an international counter-jihad organization that was originally founded in 2006, and which has spanned over twenty countries. Central to the organization has been Edward S. May of the Gates of Vienna blog, Alain Wagner and Christine Brim.
