Shalom alechem.
The Jewish Community of Oporto considers that “Expresso” should not have published the above-referred text, as it spreads an antisemitic discourse that may contribute to the promotion of discrimination and incitement to hatred and to violence against the Jewish community.
We believe that one should not publish, not even as an opinion, an article defending that Israel is “killing Muslims just because they are Muslims”, that it is “using religion as a valid argument for killing innocents”, that there is “a preference for the Jewish religion rather than the Muslim religion”, and that we are in the presence of “injudicious support for a colonising government just because it is Jewish”. Such statements cannot be published, particularly in a newspaper with such a high circulation, for they are absolutely false and could endanger the Portuguese Jewish community which for years has existed in fraternity with the Muslim community, which has tens of thousands of people. All might collapse with a simple desperate and ill-informed act.
We believe that one should not publish, not even as an opinion, an article defending that “what is happening is another Holocaust, this time of the Palestinians”, that “the Gaza Strip is another concentration camp”, that “people are experiencing genocide” and an “ethnic cleansing” and that “the memory of the horror of the Jewish Holocaust is being instrumentalised”. One should not publish statements considered as antisemitic by international instruments to which Portugal is a signatory, given that they reveal malicious ignorance about the Holocaust and an ideological blindness that permeates the terrorism of dismemberment that has persecuted the Jewish people since the desert and was repeated on 7 October.
Similarly, one should not publish, not even as an opinion, an article defending that “History is written by those with greater economic power”, that “colonisation can only happen with money”, that “money suppresses, money disguises, money colonises”, that “the Israeli forces are being supported by the gigantic USA, large corporations, major brands and by the European Commission” and that “economic capacity is reflected in how events are broadcast on media channels and in pro-Israel political debates”. In a text riddled with spurious references to the Jewish religion, the Jews and the Holocaust, one should not publish statements linking the Jews and the State of Israel to the old antisemitic myths of power, money and control of the media.
Please publish this letter.
Oporto, 14 November.
The President,
Gabriel Senderowicz
C.c. Israeli Embassy in Portugal and the Muslim Community of Oporto.
