Hurray for Panorama!!
Boo!! to Paul Wood, BBC News reporting on Eden Aberjil’s disgusting Facebook images of her posing with Palestinian prisoners.
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-10997011)
Here’s why:
A great many young Israeli soldiers have photograph albums quite similar to Eden Aberjil’s ‘The army: the best days of my life’.
The only difference is that they do not post them on Facebook.
That explains her remark that she still did not “understand what was wrong” and the comment of Dr Ishai Menuchin of the Committee Against Torture in Israel that “she is a bad apple, but all the box are bad apples”.
The IDF likes to think of itself as the most ethical army in the world and so condemned the photographs in strident terms. (They are also no fools when it comes to public relations).
For most young conscripts, and young Israelis who have completed their military service, I suspect the reaction will not be outrage but a simple shrug of the shoulders.
Ouch!!
“No fools when it comes to public relations!? you gotta be kidding. But suppose they didn’t condemn it? Can’t win if you are an Israeli.
I’d like to see some of the UK soldiers’ picture albums.
Of course Dr Ishai Menuchim is a totally dispassionate observer. Where’s the evidence for all these sweeping statements? Did they do a survey?
“I suspect”, he says. I suspect that you are an extremely bad journalist, but at least I now have evidence to prove it.
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The full text of ‘Judge’ Bathurst-Norman’s summing up to the jury in the now infamous court case has been obtained by Jonathan Hoffman of the Zionist Federation.
If you recall the court case in Brighton was brought by EDO against a group of protestors who had broken in to their plant and caused £187,000 worth of damage. The excuse for this criminal act was that they were exporting arms to Israel during Operation Cast Lead.
The plaintiffs pleaded guilty but were acquitted by the jury because, presumably, they bought in to the judge’s direction which blatantly biased the jury towards their conclusion and so justified a crime with the defence that it was due to Israel’s actions in Gaza that the crime was committed.
Hoffman’s tale of this summing-up and his demolition of the said judge can be found on CiF Watch here.
Please read this brilliant but disturbing analysis.
What does it say about the state of the English judicial system?
Whatever your views on Israel and Cast Lead, such political bias and egregious direction of a jury has no place in any democracy.
There are other questions arising about the choice of this particular judge and his track record which are disturbing.
Reference: UK: Judge Takes Delegitimisation of Israel to New Depths http://cifwatch.com/2010/07/03/uk-judge-takes-delegitimisation-of-israel-to-new-depths/ Hoffman’s first volley against Bathurst-Norman
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I’d like to bring your attention to an article recently published by Denis MacEoin on his blog entitled ‘Lies, lies, and lies about lies.
As Denis MacEoin is not a Jew and as he is a lecturer in Islamic studies and editor of the Middle East Quarterly and as he has written and studied and, indeed, earned a PhD on Islamic and Middle East subjects, I think that the neutral observer should give considerable respect to his views on a related subject: anti-Semitism.
In his article MacEoin does not mince his words:
I’m going to start this by talking about anti-Semitism. You’re probably all aware that anti-Israel activists, when told they are anti-Semites, hotly deny the charge, saying they are just opposed to Israel and its policies. I don’t believe them, any of them.
Strong stuff. Even though the staunchest Zionist is prepared to give the benefit of the doubt, when it comes to the ‘A’ word, to those who criticise Israel or the policies of its government, anti-Israel ‘activism’ is MacEoin’s subtle point here.
MacEoin continues by describing how, after the Holocaust, anti-Semitism became unfashionable and how, initially, the Left was pro-Jewish and pro-Israeli.
Then it all changed. Why? His theory is that the Left requires a a cause, someone to ‘pity’ as he defines it. As the Jews in the shape of Israel were no longer ‘pitiable’. Suddenly some atavistic European Jew-hatred rematerialised in anti-Israel or anti-Zionist polemic. MacEoin seems to say that there is a psychological aberration in the thinking of these Europeans which makes them dislike strong, even arrogant, unrepentant, assertive Jews/Israelis.
For some reason, a lot of people don’t like this. But they still don’t like to be called anti-Semites, because anti-Semitism is a form of racism, and they aren’t racists. They think they aren’t racists because anti-racism is the keystone of modern right-on politics. But they are racists, so they have a problem. They have a lot of circles to square, and to do that they have employed a range of lies that cast a spell on the media and most of the general public. It goes something like this. The Jews are no longer suffering, but someone must be suffering in order to deserve our pity, and the obvious candidates for victimhood are the Palestinians, because those nice Arabs I met at our conference tell me they are. This must mean that the Jews are… A hard think here, I suppose, then the obvious answer. The Jews, sorry, the Israelis are Nazis. Not ‘like the Nazis’. They are Nazis.
In other words, so aghast are these people at their own racism and historical guilt that they have to cleanse their Socialist souls by imprinting their own self-hate on the objects of this guilt. The only way they can justify this strange irrational hatred is by moral inversion and by transferring the historical crimes against Jews to crimes against Palestinians by Jews.
if there’s to be some sort of equivalence, there has to be a Holocaust. What? you say. What? But it’s obvious, they reply. There has been a Holocaust of the Palestinians. If this makes you feel nauseated, I don’t blame you. You ask, when, how many, where? They sneer and talk about Jenin (51 dead) and say it’s worse than gas chambers. And to make this worse, a lot of them deny the real Holocaust, aided and abetted by a UN member state, Iran.
So Israel is always referred to in terms of the darkest possible aspects of human behaviour: Holocaust, massacre, apartheid, racism, Nazism.
They hate Israel with a viciousness that can only originate in dark psychological problems with Jews. I don’t know why that is, and I don’t know how to solve it, but it’s the most dangerous single thing in the world today. I mean it.
MacEoin does not really explore why so many on the Left are so enamoured with people and regimes that should be inimical to their core beliefs. Why does George Galloway, for example, so love Hamas which represses women, kills gays and indoctrinates young minds to hate and martyrdom? Why did he appear to idolise Saddam who gassed his own people amongst his many other crimes. Why does Chavez love Ahmadinejad. Why does the IRA feel fellowship with Hamas and Hizbullah?
MacEoin has the answer – anti-Semitism. But that is almost too simple. The Leftists see a successful, highly technological, democratic, free society in Israel, yet a society that is basically capitalist and supported by the great bogeyman of the Left – the United States. Is it, perhaps, envy. Envy that their politics does not work, that they have based their political life on a system that does not produce wealth, freedom, humanity. And to make things worse, it’s those damned Jews who are showing them the error of their thinking.
But let me add a rider, as I always do. Israel is not perfect. There are many things to criticise about Israel as there are in other western democracies. Israel’s perceived injustices in the West Bank, its wars in Lebanon and Gaza can all be subjected to scrutiny and criticism.
But the debate, when it comes to Israel, whether from the Left or from Muslims and Islamists is always so hysterical, so hate-ridden, so genocidal, so shrill, so irrational and so vile that it does not leave any room for valid criticism. No other country in the world is treated in the press or at the UN like Israel. And if you think that is because Israel is the nastiest country in the world, then go there and take a look. Go to the West Bank. Go to Gaza. Then go to Sudan and Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iran; go to Tibet and North Korea. Then tell me Israel deserves this level of vilification and demonisation.
You may then come to the conclusion that, essentially, MacEoin is right.
With people like Denis MacEoin around there is still hope, at least, that hordes of irrational Jew-haters and enemies of civilisation can yet be defeated.
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A new Facebook page has been created called The IDF – Not Only Shooting.
Its aim is to show that there are aspects to the IDF that you may not know about.
It’s mainly in Hebrew but the photos speak for themselves.
As the majority of Israelis will serve in the Israeli armed forces, it’s hardly surprising that its members represent a vast range of people, beliefs, attitudes and cultures.
The IDF’s recent humanitarian project in Haiti after the earthquake shows the resources and also the ethos of the IDF.
But the Palestinians have a different view it seems. Palestinian Media Watch reports on the demonisation of soldiers – and Jews. In a Palestinian Authority TV program for children whose fathers have been imprisoned by Israel, there is the following exchange:
PA TV host Manal Seif interviews the young sister of prisoner Qussai Husam Radwan, who was sentenced to 13 months in prison:Host: “Do they bother you, the Israeli army, the soldiers there [when visiting at the prison]?”
Girl: “Yes.”
Host: “They’re wild animals, right? Aren’t they wild animals?”[PA TV (Fatah), June 21, 2010]
PA TV host Manal Seif interviews the four-year old son of prisoner Shadi Shbeita, who was sentenced to 15 years in prison:Host: “Ibrahim, you know – you’re cute and sweet. You have a nice shirt and nice pants. You’re cool. Where’s Daddy? Where’s Daddy? Daddy Shadi – where is he? Where is Daddy Shadi?”
Boy: “In prison.”
Host: “Who put him in prison? Who is it that put him in prison?”
Boy: “The Jews.”
Host: “The Jews are our enemies, right?”
[Boy nods in agreement.]
As the reporter points out, it is ‘the Jews’ who are the enemies, not ‘Israelis’ not even Jewish soldiers, but ‘Jews’.
This Facebook group shows the IDF in a different light.
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Hat tip to oyvagoy.com for this story.
The Palestinian media in the West Bank is constantly feeding its citizens with inctitement, lies and libel against Israel.
We hear stories about how people die at checkpoints as they are held up waiting to go to hospital in Israel, full of devil Israelis waiting to suck their blood.
So this story comes as a refreshing change:
On Thursday, June 3, 2010, 15 year old Muhammed Kalalwe was working in his family’s fields. They live in Jenin, a Palestinian city in the northern West Bank, …. The boy noticed a deadly viper snake and tried killing it with a rock, but the dangerous creature struck out and bit his right palm. Screams and panic ensued and within minutes, the boy’s father, Hafed, grabbed his stricken son and rushed him to the Jenin Hospital. They were ill-prepared to treat the boy, had no anti-serum and decided to send him by ambulance to the Emek Medical Center in Afula. Hafed later related that he was genuinely afraid to be taken to Emek because he was sure that they would be ignored and not even spoken to. His son’s palm and arm were critically swollen and the pain was unbearable.
The humanitarian reality of Emek shocked both the father and son as they were immediately greeted in Arabic, rushed into the ER where Emek’s multi-ethnic staff administered life-saving anti-serum and brought the boy back from the brink of death. Muhammed lay for the next two days in the pediatric intensive care unit and is now resting comfortably in Emek’s pediatric surgical department from where he will be released in the next couple of days.
I asked the father how he felt now about Emek Hospital and the Israelis he has come into contact with. Staring me straight in the eyes he said, “Our people do not know the truth about you and our medicine has a long way to go. My son and I are not the same as we were before this happened and I will share this with my family and friends. May Allah bless all of you.” As he spoke, he gesticulated determinedly in a classic Middle Eastern style and when we shook hands as I wished them both well, the grip was firm and real. I have shaken many such hands and gazed into many Palestinian eyes that had seen here a reality that they never expected to see.
While walking back to my office, I passed one of my best friends – the Head of our Emergency Services, Dr. Azziz Daroushe who is a Muslim from the nearby Israeli village of Iksal. I asked him what he thought about this latest case where we were able to save another life from Jenin. With a twinkle in his eye and a knowing grin he answered, “It’s a good thing there are snakes.” (my emphasis)
If only the Palestinian leadership would genuinely seek peace, what a huge difference Israel’s medical and technological know-how could make to the lives of everyone in the region.
The wikipedia article about Afula has this to say:
Due to Afula’s proximity to the West Bank, it became a target of Arab terrorism in Second Intifada. On 6 April 1994, a car bombing carried out by Hamas in the center of Afula killed five people. Afula also was the target of a suicide attack on a bus on 5 May 2002, in which one person died several people were injured at Afula’s central bus station. On 19 May 2003, the city’s Amakim Mall was bombed, killing three and wounding 70. This attack was carried out by Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Fatah movement’s Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.
On 17 July 2006, Hezbollah fired Katyusha rockets at Afula, one of the southernmost rocket attacks on Israel from Lebanon. Six people were treated for shock as a result of the bombing. On 28 July, a rocket landed causing a fire. The Katyusha carried 100 kilograms of explosives.
No wonder Hafed was worried.
And if you think this is unique, well it’s not even the first time Ha’Emek saved a child from Jenin from a snake bite.
Please read about the work Ha’EMek does with its staff of Jews and Arabs http://www.clalit.org.il/haemek/Content/Content.asp?CID=73&u=202
Continue reading about Palestinian father and son encounter the truth about Israel
This video speaks for itself. A young gay Druze man who thanks G-d he is living in Israel.
Don’t try this in Iran etc.
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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.
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So many times we hear ‘anti-Zionists’ comparing Gaza to the Warsaw Ghetto.
This comparison is not based on any historical accuracy or any understanding of the true horrors of the Warsaw ghetto or even conditions in Gaza, it is designed to defame Israel. If repeated often enough, it will be believed.
Let’s assume that you, dear reader, have a full knowledge of the history and purpose of the Warsaw Ghetto and the denouement leading to its liquidation and total destruction.
Now look at this press release from the Israeli Minister of Defense concerning an outbreak of Swine flu in the Gaza strip.
Israel has already transferred 10,000 doses of vaccine and continues to monitor the situation
In light of recent cases of swine flue in the Gaza Strip, the Coordinator for Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) and the Gaza District Coordination and Liaison Office (DCL) are working with the Palestinian Civil Committee in Gaza (associated with the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority) to prevent further cases.
During the course of day, the passage of a sick person was facilitated and, upon examination, the individual’s illness was found to be swine flu. Similarly, four other ill persons who also showed signs of swine flu also crossed.
The Gaza DCL is in continuous contact with health officials from the Palestinian Civil Committee in Gaza and as such is able to create up-to-date situation assessments regarding swine flue. Meetings are held with high frequency and in accordance with reports from Gaza.
As of now, approximately 10,000 doses of vaccine against swine flu have been transferred to the Gaza Strip via Israel, which remains ready to receive further requests.
Since the beginning of 2009, approximately 8,000 Gazan patients and their loved ones have entered Israel for medical reasons.
Gaza DCL Commander Col. Moshe Levi said: “The Gaza DCL is making great efforts on all levels and through all channels to assist the non-combatant Palestinian population from the Gaza Strip, with an emphasis on the field of health. This is part of our overall humanitarian effort vis-à-vis the Gaza Strip.”
I hope you noticed the similarity between Israel and Nazi Germany here?
“8000 Gazan(s).. AND their loved ones have entered Israel for medical reasons.” (my emphasis). How many sick Jews were allowed to leave the Warsaw Ghetto to travel to Polish or German hospitals? Answer. Zero.
How many vaccines against typhus and other diseases rampant in the ghetto were sent in by the Germans? Zero.
Gaza may not be the French Riviera but it’s certainly no Warsaw Ghetto either and to say so is a lie.
Unlike the Jews in Warsaw who were rounded up, ghettoised and had evil visited upon them, Gazans, who voted for Hamas and supported their continuous bombardment of Southern Israel might consider why Cast Lead was visited upon THEM. They might also consider which of the protagonists is acting like Nazis.
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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
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