Two recent incidents, one at Oxford University and one at the University of California, Irvine demonstrate a trend amongst pro-Palestinian/anti-Israel activists to silence the voice of Israel on University campuses.
In the UK a recent case sought to issue an arrest warrant for war crimes against Tzipi Livni, Foreign Minister of Israel during Operation Cast Lead, in expectation of her visiting the UK. The visit never materialised and the Israeli government issued a strong condemnation of the law which allows such warrants to be issued. The UK government then gave Israel assurances that the law would be changed (which it hasn’t) and that it would ensure Israeli politicians could come to the UK without fear of arrest.
Whilst a lot of Human Rights people and Muslim organisations became agitated that the UK government was interfering in the judiciary to provide cover for ‘war criminals’, it was revealed that Hamas was behind the warrants
Hamas admitted to masterminding the campaign to pursue war crimes cases against Israeli politicians and military officials in Britain and other European countries.
The group, considered to be a terrorist organization by the United Kingdom and the European Union, says it has been working with lawyers to get the Israelis charged with war crimes in connection with Israel’s Operation Cast Lead.
This fact doesn’t seem to bother the anti-Israel, pro-Human Rights interests. It’s rather like Hitler trying to get Churchill prosecuted at Nuremburg for bombing Dresden.
But this is just one way of trying to silence Israeli politicians.
Meanwhile back at the Uni’s.
At the University of California, Irvine, Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren was prevented from completing his address about progress in the Middle East. Having been invited by the Jewish Federation of Orange County the event was open to all students. A number of students, many clearly Muslim, stood up one after another to interrupt in a co-ordinated and very effective, and it should be said, peaceable demonstration. Each was escorted out of the building but Oren eventually gave up the losing battle. Oren was accused, inter alia, of being a killer. The students were not available to comment on Hamas’s or Fatah’s track record.
Now this does bring up an interesting problem for democracies and Free Speech; lets say this was David Irving or Robert Mugabe. Would I object to attempts to stop him speaking? Ahmadinejad was heckled in New York, for example. Just because we don’t agree with a heckler or an orchestrated demonstration doesn’t mean that the demonstrators have no right to do so. What are the limits for such demonstrations? When Ahmadinejad has been heckled in the West he has never been stopped; the protesters made their point and were arrested or made to leave.
In Irvine, according to Press TV, an Iranian-funded TV network, ‘at least eleven students have been arrested’ as a result of this protest for disturbing a public event. The students could also be disciplined and suspended or worse. Is it right that students should lose their University places and opportunity for education because of their political beliefs? Surely it’s for the law to decide if there was a misdemeanour. However objectionable I or other supporters of Israel feel their actions were, they were not violent, there were no anti-Semitic slogans.
The issue is: does everyone have a right to free speech and what are the limits of protest? Each country will have an answer to these questions. Iran has an answer and we know what that is. The irony is that these protestors prevented free speech from someone of a country where free speech is alive and kicking, but the countries these same protestors would, presumably, support, have no such freedoms. If you do not even want to hear what your opponent has to say and you want to stifle debate then it surely means that you have little confidence in your own arguments.
Debate is at the very heart of the Oxford Union. This week Deputy Foreign Minister of Israel, Danny Ayalon, was invited to speak. What then took place went beyond protest. As Ayalon began to speak various members of the audience began to shout at him. The whole sad story is related by his press office:
On Monday night, Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon was invited by the Oxford Union to speak at an event at the university. During the speech one student shouted extreme abuse at the Deputy Foreign Minister including Itbach Al-Yahud (Slaughter the Jews). The event was caught on camera and subsequently shown on Israeli television Channel Ten. The Deputy Foreign Minister is looking into the possibility of pressing charges against the student for what is tantamount to a call for genocide.
“This demonstrates our new policy on hatred and racism and we will have zero tolerance for anti-Semitism, something that should have happened a long time ago,” said Deputy Foreign Minister Ayalon.
Another protestor carrying a Palestinian flag started walking towards Ayalon before security intervened and he was ejected from the hall. Another student shouted at the Deputy Foreign Minister that “we will do to you what we did to Milosevic”. Other students shouted, both inside and outside the hall, “Palestine will be free, from the River to the Sea”, which by its meaning, calls for the destruction of the State of Israel. After the event several students attempted to physically assault the Deputy Foreign Minister but were prevented from doing so by security.
Speaking to the students, Ayalon was able to relate Israel’s point of view on many issues that many felt had rarely been heard in such a setting. Ayalon received applause at the end after taking extremely hostile and abusive questions and patiently dissecting and answering them one by one. After the event, several students approached the Deputy Foreign Minister and thanked him for giving a narrative that they felt they had never heard before.
Ayalon corrected many students’ assertions on history, international law and United Nations resolutions and told them that: “If I manage to convince you to go and learn the truth from the history books then this will have been a successful event.” During his speech, Ayalon called for historic reconciliation between all of the peoples in the Middle East.
It is interesting that some students would thank Ayalon for explaining a point of view they had not heard before. That says a lot about the way the Israeli point of view is being stifled and misrepresented in the UK media and the disgraceful demonstrators are part of that attempt to suppress Israel’s point of view and spit hatred.
How different from Irvine. In the UK any Israeli politician has to be subject to blatant anti-Semitism and calls for genocide of the Israelis (Jews only, of course) from those accusing them of the very crimes they wish to perpetrate themselves.
And now these accusations of war crimes are fuelled by the egregious Goldstone Report which is a badly flawed and thoroughly scurrilous document which over time will be dissected, rebutted and discredited. But as it is out there and carries what passes for the authority of the UN itself, it can now be used by the Israel delegitimisers to throw rocks at Israeli politicians and provide cover for the suppression of free speech and calls for genocide.
Continue reading about Israeli politicians denied freedom of speech
There have been a number of outstanding and some amusing rejoinders to the Channel 4’s “Dispatches: Inside the Israel Lobby” which illustrate, as I said yesterday, what a pile of doo-doo the programme was.
Some of these commentators point out how dangerous it is to trot out the usual tropes of shadowy rich Jews manipulating government and the media, and how close this sort of defamation is to 1930’s Nazi propaganda. Of course it is nothing like as virulent but it is, nevertheless, malign and panders to the worst type of conspiracy theorist, anti-Semite and anti-Zionist tendencies in British society whilst ignoring far more sinister and dangerous elements. In this respect, the treatment here of the Israel Lobby is the same as much treatment in the media of Israel itself: a crass, disproportionate, obsessive demonization, twisted half-truths and downright lies.
Here are some links to the responses to which I refer:
Continue reading about Responses to Channel 4 Dispatches: Inside the Israel Lobby
Channel 4’s Dispatches programme (Monday 16th November) about the British ‘Israel Lobby’ was very poor journalism which began with an agenda, tried as hard as it could to prove its own premise, failed to do so but reached the conclusion it set out to demonstrate: The Israel lobby works (behind the scenes) to subvert the British political class and media with money and bullying tactics and is effectively working for a foreign power.
This was a sordid piece of polemic which came pretty close to the usual canards whilst stating, just in case any accusation might come its way, that ‘there is no conspiracy’ – well that’s a relief – but there is one, of course, a conspiracy to defame Israel and (a section of) the Jews of Britain and those who try, against overwhelming media bias, to put Israel’s case to the British public.
The huge gap between reality and delusion was aptly demonstrated by Guardian editor, Alan Rusbridger, who could find no connection between media reporting on Israel and anti-Semitic attacks.
The accusation, which was advertised before the programme went out, that the ‘Lobby’ is working in the interests of a foreign power and against the interests of Britain, defames thousands of loyal British citizens. The programme failed to recognise the unique, deep and abiding connection between most Jews and Israel and characterised this as treasonous.
I support Israel’s right to exist and resist terrorist attacks, donate to charities that operate within Israel, write letters and emails to newspapers and the BBC, have a Zionist blog, therefore I am a traitor; a veritable latter-day Lord Haw-Haw. But much more importantly, BiCom the ZF, Conservative and Labour Friends of Israel and all other groups that are pro-Israel are treacherously working against the interests of Britain, no doubt manipulated by the deep subterranean machinations of the Elders of Zion themselves.
Continue reading about Channel 4 Dispatches – the Israel Lobby
Following the Goldstone Report and its seriously flawed and biased findings against Israel, the enemies of freedom and justice are having a field day at the UN.
On Tuesday this week (13th October 2009) the UNHRC reported that 18 of its 47 members had supported, or co-sponsored a request from the Palestinian Authority for a Special Session of that august body to discuss the report.
The Jerusalem Post reports the following list of countries as being the 18 countries supporting the PA, presumably to express their moral outrage at the report’s findings and to seek every avenue to pillory Israel in the UN and beyond.
So here are the Magnificent 18: Bahrain, Bangladesh, Bolivia, China, Cuba, Djibouti, Egypt, Gabon, Indonesia, Jordan, Mauritius, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Senegal.
Does it not make your blood boil when you see names like China, Cuba, Egypt and Saudi Arabia so keen on human rights? Some of the others don’t have much to be proud of either.
Let’s just remind ourselves that these countries have the audacity to take a morally superior stance against Israel, a tiny country, fighting for its very existence for decades and now the victim of lawfare of the most morally bankrupt and cynically hypocritical kind.
The same Jerusalem Post article points out that 6 of the 12 special session of the UNHRC have been about Israel. How many about Sudan or Zimbabwe or China, or Russia or Turkey or Syria or Sri Lanka?
This obsession with Israel can only mean one thing and we all know what that is. The Jews are still the world’s favourite people to hate.
Oh no, I’m not saying Israel is perfect, but is it really responsible for 50 percent of the world’s human rights violations?
If the UN would not be so obsessed with five and a half million Jews and take a look at the real villains in the world then perhaps we could take it seriously and perhaps they would actually do some good rather than just be a mouthpiece for international Jew-hatred.
Continue reading about The Moral Bankruptcy of the UN Human Rights Council
Ken Loach is at it again.
ORGANISERS of the Edinburgh International Film Festival have been forced to return a donation from the Israeli embassy after director Ken Loach waded into the funding row and called for people to boycott the event on political grounds…
A donation – believed to be in the region of £300 – was to have been used to pay travel costs to the capital for Tali Shalom Ezer, a graduate of the film and television department at Tel Aviv University, who directed a short feature film, Surrogate…
The SPSC then enlisted the support of Mr Loach, well known for his support of Palestinian human rights.
Mr Loach released a statement through the SPSC which read: “I’m sure many film-makers will be as horrified as I am to learn the Edinburgh International Film Festival is accepting money from Israel. The massacres and state terrorism in Gaza make this money unacceptable. With regret, I must urge all who might consider visiting the festival to show their support for the Palestinian nation and stay away.
The following day the EIFF – which has since been in talks with Mr Loach – did a U-turn. It said: “The EIFF are firm believers in free cultural exchange and do not wish to restrict film-makers’ abilities to communicate artistically with international audiences on the basis that they come from a troubled regime.
Although the festival is considered wholly cultural and apolitical, we consider the opinions of the film industry as a whole and, as such, accept that one film-maker’s recent statement speaks on behalf of the film community, therefore we will be returning the funding issued by the Israeli embassy.
I was so incensed that I wrote the following letter to the EIFF:
Dear EIFF
I am writing in utter disbelief at your craven surrender to the threats from Ken Loach to organise a boycott of the EIFF as a result of the Israeli embassy funding one of their citizens a mere £300 so they could come to Edinburgh. Loach’s pusillanimity is only matched by your cowardice in the face of unwarranted intimidation, interference with your own internal affairs and the compromise of your principles.
In the words of your own Ginnie Atkinson:
“Choosing not to accept support from one particular country would set a dangerous precedent by politicising what is a wholly cultural and artistic mission. We are firm believers in free cultural exchange, and do not feel that ghettoising filmmakers or restricting their ability to communicate artistically on the basis that they come from a troubled territory is of any benefit. Nor do we see that filmmakers are voices of their government. It is particularly important in situations of strife and conflict that artists be supported in having their voices heard*”
After receiving a threat this turned to:
“The EIFF are firm believers in free cultural exchange and do not wish to restrict film-makers’ abilities to communicate artistically with international audiences on the basis that they come from a troubled regime.
“Although the festival is considered wholly cultural and apolitical, we consider the opinions of the film industry as a whole and, as such, accept that one film-maker’s recent statement speaks on behalf of the film community, therefore we will be returning the funding issued by the Israeli embassy.”
Since when does Mr Loach speak on behalf of the film industry? And even if he does, so what.
I understand that you have funded Shalom Ezer from your own funds. This would be laudable were it not an admission that your organisation does not agree with Loach’s position but still decides to give in to threat. This is mere hypocrisy from the EIFF.
The lessons of history tell us that if as a society we sacrifice our principles on the altar of bigotry that society is doomed.
*Quoted in Harry’s Place
The pettiness of this affair is indicative. What if it were a Zimbabwean director or an Iranian, Sudanese, Sri Lankan. In the distorting prism of Loach and the outraged righteous of Scotland only Israelis are to be singled out even when the director and the subject-matter are completely apolitical. For a £300 grant.
Meanwhile, in Israel, I have it on good authority that Loach’s films are still aired without threat of boycott.
On April 20th, in Geneva, the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance will begin in Geneva. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran was invited and will attend.
This is the long-awaited follow up to the first conference in Durban, South Africa, in 2001 which turned into an anti-Israel hate-fest.
The conference was effectively hijacked by the anti-Israel lobby and its original aims completely lost in a torrent of anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic rhetoric and resolutions. Israel and the United States withdrew in disgust.
The draft documents, (which were eventually rewritten but not adopted by all parties – you can guess which ones adopted the originals), expressed “deep concern” at the “increase of racist practices of Zionism and anti-Semitism”. It thus attempted a sleight of hand to discriminate between this particular form of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. The draft continued to describe “movements based on racism and discriminatory ideas, in particular the Zionist movement, which is based on racial superiority”.
Notice the “in particular” and the lies about “racism” and “racial superiority”. Firstly, which “race” is doing the racism against which other race? Jews are not a race, unless you are a supporter of Hitler’s views on this matter. Israel has the most racially diverse population in the Middle East by a very long way.
“Racial superiority”? We have already debunked the “Jews as a race” canard, so this is covert language for Jews being the “Chosen People” which the anti-Israel camp interpret as “racial superiority” and which leads to the “International Jewish Conspiracy”. It also alludes to the “Right of Return” which is wilfully misinterpreted by this bunch of hypocrites as giving preference to Jews right to citizenship and not allowing Palestinians a right to return to their pre-1948 homes. You can characterise this as discriminatory, but “racial superiority?”
I don’t propose to go in to the reasons and arguments about the “Right of Return” of Jews and Palestinians because I can refer you to this article.
If you read the final Declaration from Durban I it is not difficult to see that the countries now baying for Israel’s blood would fail to live up to almost every paragraph of the Declaration’s stated aims. Durban II is hypocrisy made manifest, the apotheosis of the inverted moral order spreading its vicious and malicious hatred throughout the world.
In Geneva, the draft resolutions try to reintroduce the Israel- and Jew-bashing rhetoric of the first conference and to press for a resolution against “defamation” of religion which seeks to silence any criticism of Islam. Once again Israel has been singled out among all nations. Despite strenuous efforts to have the draft resolutions amended, which has been successful to a limited extent, as things stand, the draft is so clearly a document not against racism or xenophobia but actually its opposite: a slur against the Jewish people and Israel which is itself a form of the very xenophobia the Conference is supposed to be designed to condemn and an attempt, by seeking to limit freedom of speech, to suppress criticism of the religious intolerance and bigotry of those states drafting the anti-Israel lies.
President Ahmadinejad’s presence itself indicates that he is there to orchestrate his own Nuremberg rally. As Arutz Sheva reports:
Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor slammed Ahmadinejad as “the representative of a regime which consistently breaches human rights, which assassinates opponents and persecutes minority groups, which exports hatreds and terrorism throughout the Middle East.”
They might also add that he is a Holocaust denier and contemplates the destruction of Israel as a desirable goal.
Canada, Israel, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands and Australia and now, at last, the United States have all refused to take part in this obscene parody of a Conference. Some Jewish groups intend to go to have their voices heard and to demonstrate. Notably, the UK is still sending a delegation.
My view now is that the Conference should be boycotted. Boycott the boycotters. Deny them any legitimacy.
See the BBC which is quite balanced for a change (having improved on its earlier wishy-washy attempt).
Meanwhile the UN sits on its hands and watches. So much for its founding principals.
I have to pass on to you the words of Anna Bayevsky. I do not apologise for quoting in full. I do not have a web link. (April 20th is Hitler’s birthday – he’d be so proud of the neo-Nazis who have hijacked this Conference. On that day The March of The Living will once again take place at Auschwitz-Birkenau when the Jewish Youth of the world commemorate the Holocaust. The next day is Yom HaShoah – Holocaust Memorial Day)
STATEMENT BY ANNE BAYEFSKY AT THE THIRD SUBSTANTIVE PREPARATORY MEETING OF THE DURBAN REVIEW CONFERENCE
April 17, 2009
United Nations, Palais des Nations, GENEVA, SwitzerlandThe eyes of millions of victims of racism, xenophobia and intolerance are upon YOU, the representatives of states and the United Nations. And instead of hope you have given them despair. Instead of truth you have handed them diplomatic double-talk. Instead of combating antisemitism you have handed them a reason for Jews to fear UN-driven hatemongering on a global scale.
The Durban conference – allegedly dedicated to combating racism, antisemitism and other forms of intolerance – will open April 20th on the anniversary of the birth of Adolf Hitler without agreement on even so much as remembering the Holocaust and the war against the Jews. Your draft words on the Holocaust – the very foundation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights – have been narrowed to the barest mention from previous versions. And if the minor reference survives at all – it will be a testament to your interest in Jews that died 60 years ago, while tolerating and encouraging the murder of Jews in the here and now.
Furthermore, the draft before you demonizes the Jewish state of Israel and then has the audacity to pretend to care about antisemitism in a single word buried among 17 pages. Antisemitism means discrimination against the Jewish people. Since it is evident that almost none of you have the courage to say it, the face of modern antisemitism IS the UN – your – discrimination against Israel, the embodiment of the Jewish people’s right to self-determination.
Over and over again we have heard a massive misinformation campaign about the content of these proceedings and the draft before you. We have heard the tale that this draft does not single out Israel, that the hate has been removed, that the fault of the antisemitism at Durban I was that of NGOs while states and the UN were blameless.
Perhaps you think that journalists and victims will not bother to read for themselves the Durban Declaration adopted by some governments. There is only one state mentioned in it – Israel. There is only one state associated with racist practices in it – Israel. And yet the very first thing that this draft before you does is to reaffirm that abomination, abomination for Jews and Arabs living in Israel’s free and democratic society, and for all the victims of racism ignored therein. Lawyers call it incorporation by reference when they hope nobody reads the small print. The propaganda stops here. We have read it. We understand the game. And we decry the ugly effort to repeat the Durban agenda to isolate and defeat Israel politically, as every effort to do so militarily for decades has failed.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Chair of this Preparatory Committee also told us this week that the Durban Declaration in all its aspects is a consensus text. Perhaps they are unfamiliar with the Canadian reservations made in Durban in 2001 which state categorically that the Middle East language was outside the conference’s jurisdiction and not agreed. Perhaps they failed to notice that one of the world’s greatest democracies, the United States, voted with its feet and walked out of the Durban I hatefest? The Durban Declaration has never represented a global consensus among free and democratic nations. When the head of the Islamic conference treats Durban as a bible, in their words, it is more accurately a defamation of religions.
This week you decided which states ought to serve in a leadership role at next week’s conference. Among them are some of the world’s leading practitioners of racism, not those interested in ending it. You have also decided to hand a global megaphone to the President of a state which advocates genocide and denies the Holocaust.
So in a state of shock and dismay we address ourselves not to the human rights abusers that glorify the Durban Declaration or its next incarnation, but to democracies — and we ask: Will Germany sit on Hitler’s birthday and listen to the speech of an advocate of genocide against the Jewish people and grant legitimacy to the forum which tolerates his presence? What about the United Kingdom, the birthplace of the Magna Carta? Or France that helped to ship last generation’s Jews to crematoriums?
You could have fought racism. You chose instead to fight Jews. You could have promoted the universal standards against racism already in existence. You chose instead to diminish their importance in the name of alleged cultural preferences. You could have protected freedom of expression. You chose instead to undermine it by twisted concepts of incitement. You could have brought victims of racism together in a common cause. You chose instead to pit victims against each other in an ugly struggle for meagre recognition. For those democracies that remain under these circumstances you are ultimately responsible for what can only be called an appalling disservice to real victims of racism, xenophobia and related intolerance around the world.
Continue reading about Durban II – Ahmadinejad’s Nuremberg Rally
I’m not even going to quote the article I am referring to – just read it – please, please read it.
Ami Isseroff writes the most honest, the most compelling, the most moving assessment I have yet read of what Israel has done wrong and what it needs to do to put it right.
Isseroff enunciates far better and far more eloquently many of the points that I have falteringly been trying to make recently.
He makes them from the viewpoint of an Israeli committed to Zionism.
He explores why Israel is losing the propaganda battle, he constructively criticises the culture of denial and calls for more openness.
Just go here, do yourself a favour Israeli war crimes allegations: Doing our patriotic duty and read it.
Continue reading about The most honest assessment of Israel yet
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.
Continue reading about Ken Loach says Israel is responsible for rise in anti-Semitism
The Arab and Muslim world is awash with anti-Semitism. Some times it is blatant, sometimes it is in the guise of anti-Zionism. Sometimes it’s just plain ludicrous.
A video on the MEMRI website has been posted which shows an Egyptian cleric railing against Starbucks. This time the canard that Starbucks gave money to Israel and/or the Israeli Army is avoided. Instead Safwat Higazi concentrates on the Jewish symbolism of the Starbucks logo. Yes, you read correctly. Now read on.
Apparently the logo depicts Queen Esther.
This queen is the queen of the Jews. She is mentioned in the Torah, in the Book of Esther. The girl you see is Esther, the queen of the Jews in Persia.
the MEMRI video translates. He goes on to urge good Muslims to boycott the Starbucks stores in the Middle-East. After a complete misrepresentation of the Purim story, which he has clearly never read, thence to the peroration:
We Want Starbucks To Be Shut Down Throughout The Arab And Islamic World… Can you believe that in Mecca, Al-Madina, Cairo, Damascus, Kuwait, and all over the Islamic world there hangs the picture of beautiful Queen Esther, with a crown on her head, and we buy her products?
What do you notice about this story? Israel is not mentioned at all. It’s a rant against Jews. Why should this man be stirring up trouble without grounds (all puns intended, by the way)?
For some time rumours have been spread that Starbucks gave money to Israel and the IDF. This is denied on the Starbucks website:
Is it true that Starbucks provides financial support to Israel?
No. This is absolutely untrue. Rumors that Starbucks Coffee Company provides financial support to the Israeli government and/or the Israeli Army are unequivocally false. Starbucks is a publicly held company and as such, is required to disclose any corporate giving each year through a proxy statement. In addition, articles in the London Telegraph (U.K.), New Straits Times (Malaysia), and Spiked (online) provide an outside perspective on these false rumors.
Has Starbucks ever sent any of its profits to the Israeli government and/or Israeli army?
No. This is absolutely untrue.
Is it true that Starbucks is teaming with other American corporations to send their last several weeks of profits to the Israeli government and/or the Israeli Army?
No. This is absolutely untrue.
Clearly Mr Higazi has heard these rumours and presumably he has also heard the ones about the Jews being responsible for 9/11, World Wars I and II, global warming and the tooth fairy.
Anti-Semites will find whatever fuel they can to stoke their own prejudices. Please observe that this is a rant against Jews, so any pretence of anti-Zionism can go straight out of the window.
Anti-Semitism is rife in Egypt. Almost a national obsession. On the streets of Cairo you can easily find a copy of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion which is a best seller. Blood libels against the Jews abound. And all this is a nation that is Israel’s ‘peace partner’. Who knows to what extent this trash is believed in Egypt where there is a current battle between Islamists and the existing regime and political status quo. Mubarak’s government isn’t exactly a Western democracy but at least it provides some sort of stability and resistance to Jihadis.
But what about poor Queen Esther? Well, the current logo has moved on since the early days when the nature of the Queen Esther figure was a little more obvious. Wikipedia tells us:
Valerie O’Neil, a Starbucks spokeswoman, said that the logo is an image of a “twin-tailed siren” (the siren of Greek mythology).[25] The logo has been significantly streamlined over the years. In the first version, which gave the impression of an authentic 15th century European woodcut, the Starbucks siren was topless and had a fully visible double fish tail. The image also had a rough visual texture. In the second version, which was used from 1987-92, her breasts were covered by her flowing hair, but her navel was still visible, and the fish tail was cropped slightly. In the current version, used since 1992, her navel and breasts are not visible at all, and only vestiges remain of the fish tails.
Higazi is representative of a large group of Muslim clerics for whom the Jews are simply evil. Just consider: so what even if the logo DID represent Queen Esther, is that such a crime? No, the true crime is that because some of the founders and management of Starbucks are Jews that makes the company persona non grata in the Muslim world. But here’s the killer punch: the Starbucks website also tells us:
Do you work with a Middle East partner to operate Starbucks stores?
Through a licensing agreement with trading partner and licensee MH Alshaya WLL, a private Kuwait family business, Starbucks has operated in the Middle East since 1999. Today Alshaya Group, recognized as one of the leading and most influential retailing franchisees in the region, operates more than 274 Starbucks stores in the Middle East and Levant region. ….
We partner with Alshaya Group to operate Starbucks stores in Egypt, Kuwait, KSA, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, UAE, Jordan and Lebanon in the Middle East region….
We are also committed to hiring locally, providing jobs to thousands of local citizens in the countries where we operate.
In other words, the operation in the Middle East is merely a franchise operated by a Kuwaiti company and provides employment for thousands of people. But Mr Higazi isn’t interested in that, he is only interested in his narrow-minded Jew-hatred.
For those of you who doubt that anti-Zionism does not equate to anti-Semitism just look at a recent TimesOnline article by Daniel Finkelstein here:
http://timesonline.typepad.com/comment/2009/02/harry-potter-an.html
Iranian TV is ludicrously promulgating Harry Potter movies as part of the Zionist global conspiracy, Jewish corruption of the world’s moral fibre and so on and so on into ever more demented rhetoric. (NB that Zionist=Jewish and please note carefully what is said in the video which makes it clear that Iran makes no distinction between Zionists, Israelis and Jews)
And all this is done by seeming academics in smart suits speaking calmly and eruditely. It would be hard to keep a straight face if it were not so scary.
Although I can’t believe that many Iranians really believe this sort of twaddle, nevertheless, it can, drip by poisonous drip, erode their ability to think rationally.
In the Arab world especially there is an ongoing vicious Jew-hating propaganda industry which now seems to have spread to Iran (which is not an Arab state, of course).
In 1933 much of Europe was primed for genocide. In 2009 it seems that much of the world is moving inexorably toward agitating for a second Holocaust whilst the would-be perpetrators deny the first one.
