Israel, Zionism and the Media

Day: 19 March 2009

The Palestinian Authority’s Crimes against (its own) humanity

Following my previous post here Arutz Sheva today reported the results of the P.A’s decision not to fund hospital treatment in Israel for its citizens.

This decision by P.A. health minister Fathi Abu Moughli was as a result of Operation Cast Lead and is testimony to the perverted mindset which believes that such an action would harm Israel and remove a propaganda opportunity. Anything which reveals Israel to be in any way humanitarian is to be deplored, according to the P.A’s warped logic.

The Arutz Sheva report is very disturbing:

A decision by the Palestinian Authority Health Minister to cut off medical benefits at Israeli hospitals has cost the life of at least one little girl…

Six-year-old Asil Manasra died. The Palestinian Authority child had for eight months been receiving intensive treatment at an Israeli hospital for complications arising from tuberculosis. One week after the PA Health Ministry forced her family to stop the visits, the little girl struggled for breath no more..

It continues:

“I blame everyone. Should children die because of political decisions?” Asil’s father asked the AP reporter in anguish. “How can you stop treatment? When a child is so sick that she is going to die, is there something more important than that?”

Apparently, for the Palestinian Authority, propaganda is more important than life.  This is a sad fact of Palestinian life – it, life itself,  is only valued if taken by Israelis. Otherwise, Palestinian lives are pawns in a political and ideological game.

Read the whole sad story here


Ken Loach says Israel is responsible for rise in anti-Semitism

Ken Loach, the British film director, has claimed that it is “‘understandable” that there should be a rise in anti-Semitism since the Gaza conflict, the Jerusalem posts reports.

 If there has been a rise I am not surprised. In fact, it is perfectly understandable because Israel feeds feelings of anti-Semitism.

He goes on:

When history comes to be written, I think this will be seen as one of the great crimes of the past decades because of the cold blooded massacre that we witnessed. Unless we take a stand against it, we are complicit.

And all this at the Russell Tribunal on Palestine – a “a symbolic citizens’ initiative that claims to reaffirm the importance of international law in conflict resolution”.

What Loach and other are “complicit” in is the usual one-sided demonisation and singling out of one state whilst ignoring the crimes of those seeking to annihilate it. By ‘understanding’ that Israel’s perceived crimes are responsible for anti-Semitism he is saying that it is “understandable” that all Jews are responsible for Israel’s actions. He makes no condemnation of this linkage.  By expressing this belief he himself is complicit in the rise of anti-Semitism because he makes no stand against such a belief. Even Muslim leaders in the UK told their co-religionists NOT to blame Jews for the actions of Israel. 

Did Mr Loach “understand” the huge rise in attacks on Muslims as a result of 9/11 or 7/7? No. Because  there were very few attacks on Muslims in the UK whose citizens did not perpetrate a blood-libel against them. But in the wake of Operation Cast Lead anti-Semitic incidents in the UK and Europe went through the roof.  Only Jews are responsible for the actions of other Jews in Mr Loach’s perverted logic.

I would also ask Mr Loach if he has taken a stand against President Bashir of Sudan, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, the Taleban, the Russians for Chechnya (seeing as he is a supporter of Chechen independence) and South Ossetia.

But most importantly I would ask him if his kangaroo court of concerned citizens (which not only makes the accusation but then becomes judge and jury in a mockery of justice)  is even going to look at Hamas’s actions and condemn them or does he “understand” Hamas’s motives as well.

And I would ask him why the Russell Tribunal does not even follow – vis-a-vis Hamas – some of its own aims as expressed when “trying” the United States for war crimes in Vietnam:

1. Has the United States Government (and the Governments of Australia, New Zealand and South Korea) committed acts of aggression according to international law?

3. Has there been bombardment of targets of a purely civilian character, for example hospitals, schools, sanatoria, dams, etc., and on what scale has this occurred?

4. Have Vietnamese prisoners been subjected to inhuman treatment forbidden by the laws of war and, in particular, to torture or mutilation? Have there been unjustified reprisals against the civilian population, in particular, execution of hostages?

Replace “United States” with “Hamas”.

On item 1:  Hamas were and still carry out daily rocket attacks aimed specifically at the civilian population of Israel which is an “aggression according to international law”.

On item 3: as per item 1 the targets are “purely civilian (in) character” and are indiscriminate. As for scale: over 6000 such attacks since 2001.

On item 4: Gilad Shalit has been held since 2006 without access to the Red Cross contrary to international law. We do not know if he has been tortured. After Operation Cast Lead Hamas was widely reported as taking reprisals against anyone it deemed as being complicit of collaboration especially its political enemy Fatah. It carried out summary executions and woundings against civilians.

This is not Loach’s first attack on Israel. In 2007 at the San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival he called for “international boycott of Israeli political and cultural institutions”. In 2008 he condemned the celebrating of Israel’s 69th anniversary as “tantamount to dancing on Palestinian graves to the haunting tune of lingering dispossession and multi-faceted injustice”.

I believe even in the world of the self-appointed, self-righteous and self-lefteous Ken Loach and the Russell Tribunal there are clear grounds for an “indictment” and “prosecution” of Hamas. 

I am sure the entire world is watching with baited breath.