According to the BBC, Islamists in Egypt have won the election.
All the warnings about Islamists and the Arab Spring which were so poo-poohed by over-optimistic Western leaders seem to be coming true.
Tunisia, the first country to experience a revolution, also returned an Islamist government which saw fit to invite Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh to Tunis as a baying mob shouted ‘Kill the Jews’. Nice.
It is almost a year since I sat watching the upheaval in Egypt in my hotel bedroom TV in Eilat, Israel. I was impressed but cynical. I hoped the true secular democrats would win. I feared they would not. I also noticed the many banners which accused Mubarak of being a Zionist and others which said unpleasant things about Israel and Jews.
Israel was criticised for not embracing the changes across the region. Any suggestion by its politicians or supporters that this was an opportunity to unleash forces that had been held under control by dictators, was dismissed as Israel being a country that claimed to be a democracy but would deny such freedoms for its neighbours.
Soon after President Hosni Mubarak’s ouster, Prime Minister David Cameron flew to Egypt to join in the crowds in Tahrir Square declaring how happy he was to see the Egyptian people free at last.
The BBC reported at that time the following:
He said Egypt had a “great opportunity” to push for democracy.
“This is a great opportunity for us to go and talk to those currently running Egypt to make sure this really is a genuine transition from military rule to civilian rule, and see what friendly countries like Britain and others in Europe can do to help.”
How naive was that. It’s typical of a government that is purblind to the real intentions of the Palestinian Authority to engage in the politics of wishful thinking.
If Cameron was so ignorant about the almost certain outcome of a democratic election in Egypt installing the Muslim Brotherhood as the party of government (and joined by a hefty number of Salafist extremists, apparently), then his and his government’s belief that the PA is moderate, just because they would like it be true, is pretty much indicative of the politics of hope and delusion that is now endemic in Europe.
But it is more toxic than delusion.
If you see events in the Middle East through a haze of hope instead of clear-eyed reality you can assert that the impasse in the Israel-Palestine peace negotiations are due to Israeli incalcitrance and the settlements, and not Palestinian rejectionism and Jew-hatred.
You also get involved in the hypocrisy of a UK government, as part of NATO, helping rebel Libyans to unseat a government that it and its predecessors have been cosying up to in order to protect their commercial interests.
It leads to the Gibson Inquiry into claims, as reported by the Daily Mail and othersthat:
MI6 was involved in the illegal transfer of two Libyans into the hands of Colonel Gaddafi.
Continue reading about Mr Cameron, you are needed in Tahrir Square again
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Those who risked their life to save Jews during the Shoah are almost by definition extraordinary human beings.
One such is “Mademoiselle” Andree Geulen.
These ‘righteous among the nations’ are honoured in Jerusalem’s Yad Vashem national Holocaust memorial.
I had not heard of Andree Geulen before. I have now.
She has just celebrated her 90th birthday,
I defy you not to shed a tear when you watch and listen to this amazing tribute to her.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=QR6PC74–1s
H/T @margieintelaviv
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My wife shops near her school Fridays to get bread and stuff for Shabbat from the Jewish baker.
She then goes next door to the newsagent to get her Jewish papers.
The owners are devout Muslims.
They are always friendly, polite, respectful.
However, you never really know what they think of their Jewish clientele, after all, business is business, no?
Today I drove my wife to collect the bread and get the papers.
I stood beside her as she took the local Jewish paper to the counter where the young (20 something) son of the owner was serving.
On the front page was a huge picture of Gilad Shalit.
This is what the young man said, verbatim, unprompted:
“Thank God he is home safe”.
I don’t know why but I fill up just thinking about that.
We were both speechless. We expected a polite ignoring of this story, after all, why should he care? We always presume that the sympathy would be only with the Palestinians.
I was reluctant to tell this story that had moved me. Was it patronising or discourteous to Muslims to somehow believe they would not be relieved at the release of a young man? A Jew. An Israeli. Did it say more about my prejudices than those I am subscribing to them?
A Muslim friend advised me that it was a good story to tell. It shows us that if we really spoke to each other more, we might surprise each other.
Chag Sameach.
Continue reading about Gilad Shalit and the Muslim newsagent
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*Readers’ warning: some of these tales have been ever so slightly embellished for comic effect.
Well, this is a first for me: blogging from my succah.
Succot is just about my favourite festival. To any outsider the rituals of Succot (or Succos if you like) seem strange to say the least and give rise to many an amusing incident.
If you are not familiar with the festival please see the information at the end of this blog.
Succahs take many shapes and forms. Ours, as you can see on the right, is made of a metal frame and canvas walls with the roof made from bamboo slats. Other building and roofing materials are available.
A succah is a temporary dwelling but some people have permanent structures which are used for other purposes during the rest of the year. One such structure is my rabbi’s garden shed:
The Tale of the Rabbi’s Succah
My rabbi’s succah is a converted garden shed which can seat a surprising number of people. The roof has been specially adapted so that, using a cantilevered pulley system, it splits in two like the Space Shuttle’s payload bay and is then tied down to reveal the ‘schach’, the roof covering, which is straw thatch but must be sufficiently ‘porous’ to allow starlight to penetrate.
Some years ago, with the succah roof fully opened to a clear autumnal sky, the rabbi’s doorbell rang.
On opening the front door both the bell-ringer and the rabbi were surprised. The bell-ringer was not expecting a tall dark figure with a flowing beard, and the rabbi was confronted by a complete stranger rather than the half-expected visitation of a member of his congregation.
“Good evening,” said the bell-ringer, unfazed, “can I have look through your telescope?”
The Tale of the Succah and the Blitz
A good friend of mine tells me that his grandparents lived in the East End during the War. As observant Jews they would always build a succah for the Succot festival.
One night, the Jews of the East End, along with everyone else, had to take shelter in a different sort of temporary dwelling: the London Underground.
They lay huddled in a tunnel listening to the now all too familiar sound of the percussion of bombs and the shuddering of the ground above their heads.
Nothing could prepare them for the sight which met them on returning to ground level after the all-clear sirens.
Amidst burning rubble lay the ruins of their house.
Only one object was left standing: the funny little hut with its slatted roof.
My friend’s grandfather’s succah had survived the Blitz
The Tale of the Succah as a political symbol
As I look out into the garden I have noticed that everyday my succah is leaning further and further to the right. The gradient of the garden and the prevailing winds play havoc with its stability.
Is the succah like me I wonder? Am I, too, inclining further to the Right as I get older, buffeted by the prevailing winds of the new political orthodoxy and succumbing to the slippery slope of Neo-Con thinking? Am I gradually losing all contact with my socialist upbringing?
Then I enter the succah and look out. From this viewpoint my succah is leaning to the left.
So I guess the list of a succah depends on where you are standing, just like a political viewpoint, all is relative to the person doing the looking.
The Tale of the Succah Crawls
In years gone by it was a tradition in the community that between the morning service and mincha in the afternoon we would congregate at the rabbi’s succah and then plot a course through the neighbourhood visiting each others’ succah.
Each succah owner, or rather the wife of each owner, would prepare a little feast of pop, biscuits, fruit and cake. The group of itinerant succah crawlers would be accompanied by children who would be asked to make the correct blessing on each type of food whilst the men (and women) would each have a ‘l’chaim’ or two and enjoy a chat.
As the crawl proceeded, rather like its non-Jewish inspiration, the ‘pub crawl’, the ‘crawlers’ became increasingly convivial as the toll of whiskies, kosher liqueurs and assorted alcoholic beverages whose provenance could often be traced to the duty-free shops of Ben Gurion Airport, took their inevitable effect.
The orderly grouping of sober men and children in sober suits and sober winter coats ended up as a raggle-taggle loud assortment of observant Jews at various stages of inebriation.
When they finally descended upon the synagogue in time for mincha (afternoon service) I’m not sure that they (we) were in a suitably appropriate condition that met the prerequisites of halacha (law) for davening (prayer).
The Tale of the Succah that didn’t make it
Succot falls at the beginning of Autumn, more or less. The Jewish calendar is a lunar one and that means that the date varies from year to year in terms of the solar calendar.
On the whole, here in Northern England, succot heralds the advent of darker and colder days.
If you have a standalone succah like ours, unlike the succah which was the hero of the Blitz, it is very much at the mercy of the elements. It is not designed to resist extreme weather; the ‘roof” is particularly susceptible to collapse, made as it is from a few wooden planks and bamboo slats.
We used to have a wooden succah which I would assemble and then disassemble every year. We actually had a plastic cover for the roof to keep the rain out when we weren’t inside it. This cover could, under the right conditions, act like a hot air balloon or drogue chute.
One morning, after a particularly blustery night we discovered the plastic sheet draped across the fence and the succah itself had apparently ‘walked’ or flown a few metres across the garden threatening to end up in a neighbour’s back yard. The wooden beams had fallen inside along with the bamboo and a wall.
One can imagine the scene as the succah took flight like Grandpa Potts outhouse in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (or should that be Me Ol’ Bamboo?) or Dorothy’s house in the Wizard of Oz.
What must the neighbours have thought? Which leads me to:
What Do the Neighbours Think?
Succot is the time of year when we are most visibly Jewish in a non-Jewish country.
I often wonder what the neighbours make of the annual succah building, the strange night time meals when we parade into the succah wearing heavy coats and reappear immediately to wring out sodden towels used for drying chairs.
Then, long after we have returned to the house, the candles turn our seven foot square booth into a huge Chinese lantern well into the night.
Then there is the morning where we can be observed taking out our strange leaves and palm frond and a yellow citrus fruit the likes of which you never see in Tesco, then shaking them, popping them back into their receptacles and proceeding as if nothing completely weird just happened.
These days I carry my lulav in a transparent plastic sleeve. Not long ago the container was a metre-long cardboard box. As the men made their way to the synagogue with this long box in one hand a little box in the other (for the etrog) I fancifully wondered if our neighbours might rename our festival Snookot, as it would appear to the uninitiated that this was the season of the Annual Jewish Snooker Contest.
Chag Sameach!
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Additional information:
The festival has two main symbols, the Succah and the Arba Minim (the Four Species or Lulav and Etrog).
The latter relates to the festival’s origins as a fruit harvest festival, one of the three ‘Foot Festivals’ or pilgrimages which took place at the Temple in Jerusalem.
The former is a commemoration of the temporary ‘booths’ in which the Children of Israel dwelt during their sojourn in the wilderness on their way to the Land of Israel.
At the end of the festival we also celebrate the completion and, therefore, the beginning of the annual cycle of weekly Torah reading with Simchat Torah, the Rejoicing of the Law.
Every year for the last 15 years or so I have built a succah in my garden and every year I buy my lulav and etrog.
You can see what they look like on the right. We have to make a blessing on the lulav every day, except Shabbat, and in the synagogue we have special prayers during which the lulav is shaken in all directions of the compass and up and down and paraded around the synagogue in procession.
At the end of the festival on Hoshana Rabba willow branches are beaten against the ground, symbolic of the threshing of our sins. This links Succot to Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur as the day on which our fate for the year is finally delivered.
Thus the many symbols and the interweaving of many themes linking Succot, Hashana Rabba, Simchat Torah and also Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur is a very beautiful, joyous and poetic time of the year.
When you live in Northern England very few years go by where you can sit in your succah everyday. If Rosh Hoshana often brings an Indian Summer, as it did this year, then Succot is sure to bring rain and cold and damp. After all, this festival was designed for a late Israeli summer not a British Autumn.
This year, so far, has been good. We have been able to spend a lot of time in the succah. But as I write, the sky is greying and the temperature is dropping. If it becomes too uncomfortable to be in the succah then you can come back into the comfort of your regular home.
In warm climates you are obliged to do everything you would do in your home, including, according to some authorities, sleep, in your succah, as well as entertaining and working.
It’s hard to describe the experience of living in a succah but it seems to stir some atavistic instincts which, like camping, recall some embedded memories of cave dwelling and times before central-heating and flat-screen TV’s.
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Taking a break till Monday for the Jewish New Year.
I wish all my Jewish readers Shana Tova u’Metuka – a Happy and Sweet New Year.
To the rest of you, well I hope the New Year brings all mankind peace and prosperity.
Thanks for listening.
See you next year 5772.
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On Friday night, after prayers, a mob of several thousand Egyptians attacked the Israeli embassy in Cairo.
Previously, the Egyptian authorities had raised a defensive wall around the embassy but that seems to have acted like a red rag to a bull.
A determined mob broke down the wall and entered the compound, torching it and burning the Israeli flag for the second time in a month.
Some reports suggested that this group was Islamist, others that it was Communists trying to destabilise the country.
What is clear is that several thousand turned up to break in to the compound. More than a thousand were injured and 3 actually died, which is insane.
Meanwhile, the Egyptian police stood back and did nothing. As the mob hammered at the walls and door where the remaining few embassy staff members were huddled, the members of staff of the Israeli embassy were in contact with Prime Minister Netanyahu and asked him to convey their final messages to their loved ones. They were clearly in fear of their life.
According to some reports President Obama called the Egyptian government and demanded they honour their obligations under international law.
Some say Obama even threatened the Egyptians with dire consequences if they did not act to save the embassy staff.
Soon after, commandos rescued the remaining Israelis and smuggled them out of the embassy wearing Arab attire.
Avi Mayer (@avimayer) has reported via Twitter from several sources. Here are some snippets:
I don’t get it. When Netanyahu/Barak called, Tantawi was unavailable. When Obama/Panetta called, he picked up. Is he screening our calls?
Walla: Fearing
#Cairo protesters would pretend to be rescuers,#Egypt commandos used “secret sign” and#Israel emb guards opened door.
When I tweeted about the incident earleir this evening a received a couple of brusque rejoinders including this one which I answered vias a retweet:
RT @fat_lam: @RayPCook at least no Israeli was killed, #israel on other hand did kill innocents<<what do you think would have happened to the #Israelis if they had not been saved by #Egyptian army?
This links in to the presumed spark to this incident. Over a week ago now 8 Israelis were killed in separate incidents near Eilat on the border with Egypt when terrorists fired automatic weapons and artillery rounds at a car, a bus and IDF soldiers.
As the IDF pursued the perpetrators and despite every effort not to hit anyone on the Egyptian side, several Egyptian soldiers were killed by Israeli fire. One of the reasons given is that the terrorists were actually dressed in Egyptian uniforms or something similar.
The tweeter above is not concerned with Israeli deaths just the Egyptian ones despite an expression of regret from Israel.
This is the cover story for the Egyptian mob.
The truth is that no excuse is required for a mob raised on an anti-Semitic diet of Jew-hatred.
Egyptian clerics are often very keen to demonise Israel and the Jews.
Mein Kampf and The Protocols of the Elders of Zion appear to be standard reading and are freely available.
Israel is blamed for every calamity in a press which is often hysterically (in both senses) obsessed with Israel hatred: when a tourist was attacked and killed by a shark in Sharm-el-Sheikh, Mossad were blamed;
an Israeli is currently under arrest for spying even though there does not appear to be a case to answer;
during the demonstrations in Tahrir Square foreign journalists were accused of being Israeli spies and the CBS reporter Lara Logan was brutally sexually assaulted and accused of being an Israeli in February.
Even yesterday the appearance of a female journalist was met with accusations that she was Israeli and she had to be rapidly whisked away.
So it appears that the Arab Spring has become an excuse for mob rule and taking the law into ones own hands in certain sections of Egyptian society.
These same people who accuse Israel of breaking international law are only too quick to do the same themselves.
There are some positives:
The Egyptian authorities have arrested and arraigned several of the trouble-makers
A Bahraini government spokesman tweeted:
Not protecting the Israeli embassy in Cairo is a clear violation of the Vienna Convention of 1961 on diplomatic relations
I’m not completely au fait with the relations between Bahrain and Israel, but given the almost uniform hatred of the Arab world against Israel, this is a very decent thing to have said, and it constitutes a reprimand.
But here’s the ‘whatif’ bit. The guards inside the embassy had guns. They even fired some warning shots in the air according to Avi Mayer (@avimayer). They were given permission to open fire on the crowd should their lives be in danger.
Now here’s the thing; imagine that – they asked permission to save their own lives knowing that if it came to this the diplomatic fallout would inevitably go against Israel.
So, what if the commandos were a little late and the mob had battered down a wall and there were the guards, guns drawn, and the mob attacked them, presumably filled with jihadi zeal and the prospect of paradise for dying whilst trying to kill some Jews.
Does this sound familiar? Think Mavi Marmara, a somewhat different arena, yet, nevertheless, armed Israelis with no intention of lethal conflict are faced with a baying mob ready to lynch them.
So what if the Israelis fired, killed nine or ten of their attackers and then the Egyptian cavalry arrived and saved them.
What would the world have said? Would they be condemned for using excessive force as the Palmer report found?
With more Egyptian blood on their hands would Israel have been blamed for its citizens defending what is, in international law, sovereign territory?
What would all the leftists say? What would the Guardian say? I can take a pretty good guess; they would have found a way to condemn the Israelis. They would quote members of the mob saying that they had no intention of hurting anyone.
Some elements in Israel would call for an end to the peace treaty. The UN would have demanded an investigation.
Yet, the situation is not dissimilar to the Mavi Marmara. If a mob is coming at you with clearly lethal intent, what is a proportionate response?
And, ‘what if’ the Egyptian commandos got there too late and six Israelis were lynched? General rejoicing across the Arab and Muslim world whilst their governments would disingenuously condemn the deaths and, at the same time, try to ‘explain’ them in the ‘context’ of the ‘incident’ near Eilat.
Israelis would demonstrate outside the Egyptian embassy – maybe. But as now, and as always, Israelis would respect the Egyptian embassy physically.
It should be noted that before the mob attacked the Israeli embassy in Cairo, a man was arrested in Tel Aviv for throwing a stone at the Egyptian embassy. Throwing a stone. One man. So much for the evil, murderous Israelis so often characterised across the world.
If the Israelis had killed anyone we would have a third incident, along with the Flotilla and the terrorist attack on the highway near Eilat where Israelis killed those trying to kill them and were condemned for doing so.
With a poll showing the majority of Egyptians wanting to end the 32 year treaty with Israel, despite the commendable, but somewhat belated actions of the Egyptian government, it is clear that when a new government is elected it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that it will do so on an anti-Israel ticket.
Additionally, 60%, according to another poll, want to restore Sharia Law.
The prospects for a continued peace with Israel look fragile and would only be maintained for strategic reasons rather than a wish for peace.
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Yes, I’m back.
So not much happened whilst I was on my rest then? What did you say?
Ah, ok:
Palmer Report on the Mavi Marmara
Turkey and Israel spat
Terror attack near Eilat
English riots
Gaddafi ouster
England slaughter India at cricket (you can’t get more earth-shattering than that)
And on a personal note, I have been concentrating on Twitter and doubled my followers.
I have had a brief, but somewhat vituperative, exchange with Yvonne Ridley on Twitter.
Oh, and my elder son made Aliya.
So, as I said, not a lot been happening, then.
But before I get hooked on this year’s Strictly Come Dancing and find out what Sir John Major found so attractive in Edwina Currie, I’d better get back to blogging.
So much negative news and worrying developments in Israel (I must get used to NOT putting hashtags in front of keywords after using Twitter for so long) that I thought my first blog posts would be about some inspiring positive stories from Israel.
So stay tuned. Cookie is back and will be reviewing and opining on things Israeli, Zionist and Middle Eastern as I have been doing for the last two and a half years.
UPDATE: How could I forget the interrupted IPO concert at the Royal Albert Hall!
UPDATE 2: And phone hacking and the Murdochs!! Like I said, a quiet 2 months.
Continue reading about Well, not much happened, then, in last two months?
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After 2 and a half years it’s time to to step back and reevaluate.
Taking a leaf out of Chas Newkey-Burden’s book.
Thanks for reading and a special thanks to all those who have been kind enough to support me.
I will be back later in the year.
Am Yisrael Chai
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… what the F… is going on!?
The much vaunted Flotilla 2 failed to get beyond Greek waters. The Mavi Marmara, star of Flotilla 1 was withdrawn under pressure from the Turkish government and the original 1500 became only a few hundred which rapidly dwindled to nothing.
Israel actually succeeded in bringing Greece and Turkey together in preventing a confrontation at sea!
And now the ongoing aerial assault on Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv, know as ‘Flytilla’ or ‘Airtilla’ has also foundered as France, the Netherlands and others prevent ‘activists’ intent on causing trouble, from flying to Israel.
Meanwhile at Ben Gurion, those who have managed to land find themselves at a remote terminal, well away from the main tourist area, and are either put on the next flight or arrested.
Israel has every right to deny entry to anyone it pleases, for whatever reason it chooses as a sovereign nation. These ‘activists’ are intent on challenging Israel’s sovereignty, not helping Palestinians.
You can find it in their rhetoric; they are flying to ‘Lyd’ airport in ‘Palestine’. Get it? Israel is Palestine. They are not coming to protest blockades, sieges or occupation, they are coming to delegitimise Israel itself.
Those taking part in both fiascos are a bunch of self-righteous hypocrites. They wouldn’t even allow their so-called fig-leaf humanitarian aid to be shipped to Israel and then taken by the Israelis into Gaza.
They came intent on breaking one blockade and then ended up having to contend with two as the Greek port authorities blocked their departure or chased them as they tried to slip away.
There was even the irony of Gazans staging demonstrations against the Greek blockade.
Following the hashtags #flotilla2 and #flotilla or #freedomfllotilla required enormous will power not to put two fingers down one’s throat one minute and the same two fingers at their tweets the next.
All sorts of hilarious conspiracy theories floated like so much flotsam to the surface of the twitosphere: The Israelis bribed the Greeks who needed the money; the Israelis had sabotaged two boats even though the Turks, of all people, denied this; the Greeks had to do what the EU wanted because of their debt crisis; yada, yada.
They convinced themselves that the Greek people were with them and their government had been suborned by those dirty Zionists.
They are a bunch of whining hypocrites. They fly into the only country in the region that tolerates free speech, almost to the point of stupidity, to try to prove that Israel is an apartheid state. Then they act in a way, and with a declared intention, that guarantees they will be expelled or arrested or both so they can whine a bit more about how Israel is a ‘police state’ not a ‘true democracy’, and closes down free speech. You get the idea? They are excrement-stirrers.
This is an extension of the assault on Israel’s borders on the ‘Naksa’ demonstrations in the Golan. Let me repeat: they are coming from foreign countries to demonstrate, demonise and delegitimise the state. Why should they be tolerated? Which country would tolerate this?
Let me see them fly into Lhasa not Gaza and see what happens. Let them try to fly to Grozny. Let’s see how much luck they have in Damascus or Beirut or Alexandria.
The irony is that Ben Gurion in Tel Aviv is one of the few places where they know they are safe to fly to because they know, despite their declarations, that Israel is not a police state, that it will not treat them as harshly as other states. They pretend to be brave but they are really cowards.
There is a tremendous feeling in the pro-Israel community that this time Israel used diplomacy well and played the activists’ game better than they did. No-one has been hurt, let alone killed; no real confrontation and best of all, the flotillards have gone home (well apart from a small boat that evaded the Greeks) as sick as a Captain Flint.
Yes, the futile flytillaniks still arrive at Ben Gurion as dozens continue to be killed in Syria every day.
Here are some others’ views of this week’s events:
Stephen Pollard on CiF in the Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jul/08/gaza-flotilla-israel-diplomacy
even better from Israel’s perspective, the attempt at a second flotilla has prompted the arrival of a new ally: Greece. The Greek coastguard has been vigilant in intercepting three would-be flotilla boats and watching the remaining seven in Greek ports. Last week, IDF helicopters were part of a large military exercise with the Greek army, after which Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu thanked Greek PM George Papandreou for all his help.
Some activists have responded with pure antisemitism, arguing that the impoverished Greeks have caved in to Israel’s financial power.
The Greeks’ behaviour has not escaped Erdogan’s notice and has resulted in a form of bidding war between the two leaders to help Israel stop the flotilla. As a senior IDF officer told the Jewish Chronicle this week: “We will make peace with the Palestinians long before the Greeks and Turks resolve their differences.”
Emanuele Ottolenghi in the Commentator http://www.thecommentator.com/index.php/article/292/gaza_flotilla_flops
He speculates about why Flotilla 2 has failed where Flotilla 1 succeeded. He puts Turkey at the centre of the reasons for failure:
With Turkey unwilling to play along and a coming UN report endorsing Israel’s blockade as legal, the Greek government similarly had enough cover to go after the boats and their activists. If the blockade is legal for the UN, blocking the flotilla in Greece is just as legal.
And he also notes elements of anti-Semitic canards in the flotillards pathetic excuses:
Angry flotilla participants have variously blamed the Greek government for preventing their departure – with one activist bordering on the usual anti-Semitic imagery and saying that Greece caved in to Israel due to its economic circumstances.
The idea that helping Israel against the flotilla could bring financial respite to the Greek economy is ludicrous – Israel would have to single handedly control the IMF, the World Bank and the European Investment Bank– and possibly the Bundesbank too – in order to deliver the additional help that Greece may need to avoid default.
That this idea was voiced at all reveals the activists’ conspiratorial mind set.
Yes, folks. The blockade of Gaza is legal. The UN says so. And if the flotillards want to ignore the UN they can’t accuse Israel of doing the same without an enormous dollop of hypocrisy.
Which is exactly their position.
Continue reading about Flotilla Founders, Flytilla Foiled, Fanatics Fail in Foolish Fiasco…
