Ray Cook - As I See It

Israel, Zionism and the Media

Year: 2009 (Page 7 of 13)

Peace or surrender?

07/04/2009 / / 0 Comments

King Abdullah of Jordan, on a visit to Bucharest, has said that Israel

“must decide whether they want to observe this opportunity and become integrated in the region or whether they want to remain a fortress … and keep the Middle East hostage in conflict”

as reported by Arutz Sheva. The opportunity he refers to is the Saudi Peace Plan/Ultimatum reiterated in Qatar last week in terms of “take it or leave it”.

The Saudi plan offers recognition of Israel from all Arab countries but in return Israel must withdraw from what are known as The Occupied Territories, there must be an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, and (and here’s the killer punch), there must be a just solution to the “problem” of Palestinian refugees.

So in return for the dubious benefits of “recognition”, whatever that really means, Israel must return to the 1949 ceasefire lines and potentially allow into Israel hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Palestinians against whom it has been fighting an existential war since 1967. This influx will turn the Jewish State into something quite different. In no time, Jews would be a minority in their own country and there would be two Arab states, no doubt with the intention of confederating as Palestine and thus bringing about the end of Israel.

Security issues (massive), housing, health, the economy would all suffer to the detriment of Israelis. And where would these returnees go? Would they have the right, having kicked the Jews out of the West Bank, to start to kick them out of Ashkelon and Haifa?

In Qatar an ultimatum was issued. See my post “Israel must agree to its own destruction” – Arab League This is more of the same from a previously tacit source – namely king Abdullah.

It’s as if the enmity generated throughout the world by Operation Cast Lead, the move to a right wing government in Israel and the pleasant noises (for Arab ears) emanating from the new administration in Washington have emboldened the Arabs in the belief that the time is ripe to land a killer blow on the Israeli chin or maybe a kick somewhere lower down.

All this might be considered a first round negotiating position, but three significant players are completely ignored in this equation: Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran.

Also on Arutz Sheva this report Hamas: We Will Not Recognize Israel-Period. 

Hamas leader Ismael Haniya reasserted his faction’s principled refusal to recognize Israel, calling it “the Zionist entity” and claiming it to be an illegitimate state based on ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity, according to the Palestine Times. He said that Hamas wouldn’t abandon its principles under pressure. “We will not cave in to pressure, we will not betray our people’s trust, we will not recognize the illegitimate Zionist entity. This has always been our stance, and it will never change.”

Haniya suggested that when it comes to recognizing Israel, the Palestinian Authority represented only itself and not the entire PA Arab population.

Let’s analyse this.  Israel is “an illegitimate state based on ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity”. So what is it this “principled” people want to do with Israel? 

“Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.” 

“There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors.”

(http://www.mideastweb.org/hamas.htm)

Hamas are a little hypocritical when it comes to ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity, don’t you think? Just go to PalestinianMediaWatch (www.pmw.il) to see the depraved depths of their hate-filled rhetoric, their “educational”materials, their blood-libels and then tell me who are the racists and Nazis in the Middle-East.

Hezbollah and Iran have a similar genocidal animus against Israel and the Jews. Fatah, Al-Aqsa Martyrs, Islamic Jihad are not exacty Israel or even Jew-friendly.

So let’s see what happens when the Saudi dream is realised. Israel’s borders will be open, the security wall dismantled and those whose professed aim is to kill all Jews and destroy Israel will have a free pass across its borders, along its coastline, in its airspace. Their agents and accomplices will move freely among Jewish Israelis.

So the small matter of the Right of Return for Palestinians is nothing less than a formula for the destruction of Israel and the removal of all rights to self-determination of Jews. So the other points in the formula a little moot. Of course, compensation for the hundreds of thousands of Jews expelled from Arab countries in 1948 are not part of the equation.

Do the Arab nations really expect this government of all governments to agree to a new Jewish Holocaust? 

Of course they don’t. But what they do want is to be seen as moderate, offering a “peace solution” which Israel will reject out of hand and they can write another chapter in the Book of Historical Revisionism to say “the Jews didn’t want peace. We had no choice but to continue the struggle. They bring it upon themselves.”

BBC’s misleading headline – again

07/04/2009 / / 1 Comment

On the BBC news site home there is a link which reads:
Palestinian killed in demolition

What?! My reaction was – “Oh no”, they’ve demolished a house with someone inside it and killed them.

But no. Nothing of the sort.

Israeli police have shot dead a Palestinian motorist in East Jerusalem who drove at them while they were carrying out a home demolition.

Ahh! So a potentially lethal attack on Israeli police is turned into a headline which clearly states that someone was killed as a result of the demolition.

The demolition in question was that of the house of Hussam Dwayat who killed 3 people in a bulldozer attack in Jerusalem in July 2008.

Now, whatever you think about house demolitions, it is clear that the BBC headline writer has seriously skewed the truth. Anyone who is not bothered to read the story will just think it’s another Israeli atrocity story.

I have complained to the BBC. I await their response.

48 Gazan children

06/04/2009 / / 1 Comment

yNet.com reports “48 Gaza orphans to travel to Israel for 2-week rest”

Forty-eight Palestinian orphans whose parents were killed in bombings during Operation Cast Lead were planned to arrive in Israel on Wednesday for two weeks of rest and recovery from their grim reality at home.

If these kids weren’t orphans, no doubt they would never have been allowed out because their parents would have feared retribution from Hamas.

Propaganda exercise? All such gestures can be characterised as such by cynics and bigots.

The groups who have organised the visit to Haifa see that the only hope for the future is children who are taught to love and respect and not to kill. That goes for both sides but is especially true of children in Gaza who are fed a diet of Jew-hating vitriol in schools and on TV. 

Children whose parents were killed by Israelis would have a natural animus against the country of their killers. They will be especially vulnerable to the death cult of Hamas.

Does this not demonstrate that Israelis and Jews are not taught to hate and do not rejoice in the blood of their enemies children (as Caryl Churchill suggests in her play, “7 Jewish Children”). At least a portion of Israeli society is making an effort to bring the children of enemies together to try to make a better future for Israelis and Palestinians.

The children who have received love from us will remember this experience for many years and when they grow up will reach out for peace. I believe the change will come only from the youth out of will and recognition and not from treaties.

said Yoel Marshak, one of the organisers. This is a left-wing narrative, it is unlikely to make a difference, but it can’t do any harm.

It demonstrates that Israel is a free and plural society where many views are tolerated. It gives the lie to genocidal narratives.

Now we need similarly aged Israeli children to visit Gaza for the sake of their education, perhaps.

Hazel Blears’ brave stand against the MCB

04/04/2009 / / 0 Comments

Hazel Blears, the Secretary of State for Communities in the UK government, may be a diminutive figure but she is punching above her weight in a confrontation with Dr Daud Abdullah, leader of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB)

Abdullah recently attended the “global anti-aggression conference” in Istanbul. Like many such conferences, its main purpose was to bash the Coalition, Israel and Jews generally.

The conference issued a declaration which Abdullah signed up to. Blears objected to this because she claimed that the declaration “calls for violence against troops and Jewish communities”  See Guardian coverage of this here. Abdullah replied that this was “an extraordinary and malicious interpretation”. He then went on to rebut the allegations in the Guardian here.

Blears broke off relations between the UK government and the MCB as a result. Now they are threatening to sue her for libel.

Leaders of the MCB have often been ambiguous about Islamist violence at home and abroad and have steadfastly refused to attend the nation’s Holocaust Remembrance Day because they believe focusing on the Jewish Holocaust ignores the “Holocaust in Palestine.”

So what did the Istanbul text actually say? See a transcript here.

It is clearly a document which supports Hamas who are described with the blanket term “mujahidin” thus characterising them purely as jihadis acting against the “Zionist entity’s” occupation. 

It calls the Saudi peace plan a betrayal. It calls for ALL Palestine to be liberated and thus is calling for the destruction of Israel. It is not very pleased with Fatah or Egypt who it sees as traitors.

Now let’s look at point 7.

7. The obligation of the Islamic Nation to regard everyone standing with the Zionist entity, whether countries, institutions or individuals, as providing a substantial contribution to the crimes and brutality of this entity; the position towards him is the same as towards this usurping entity.

As it has already called for armed resistance to the Zionist entity it states that its position towards anyone or any government or institution should be the same. Now although the language (in translation) is not exactly explicit it does not take much to work out that this means that violence and armed resistance to countries such as the USA and the UK and towards Jewish institutions (who support the Zionist entity) anywhere in the world is justified. Otherwise what DOES it mean and why make the statement.

Point 8:

8. The obligation of the Islamic Nation to regard the sending of foreign warships into Muslim waters, claiming to control the borders and prevent the smuggling of arms to Gaza, as a declaration of war, a new occupation, sinful aggression, and a clear violation of the sovereignty of the Nation. This must be rejected and fought by all means and ways.

This is more explicit: anyone assisting the blockade is at war with the Ummah and they must be fought “by all means and ways”. All means and ways includes armed resistance and terrorism.

Either Dr Abdullah has not read it or has not understood it or he has signed something he actually disagrees with or, more likely, he is a hypocrite saying one thing to the UK government whilst he subscribes to something else. Whatever his denial and whatever interpretation he wishes to place on the text, it is clear what the text actually means.

It’s about time the MCB stopped associating itself with extremist views. It cannot condemn 7/7 on one hand and be a signatory to the Istanbul declaration on the other. If it is to fight extremists and extremist views from Muslims in the UK it has no business being involved with extremist views abroad. If Dr Abdullah signs such a document he is risks being seen as a coward, a hypocrite or both.

I fervently hope that the libel case is pursued so that the brave stance Hazel Blears has made will be supported by evidence which is patent.

UN appoints a Jew to investigate Jewish “war crimes”

03/04/2009 / / 0 Comments

The UN has appointed Richard Goldstone to lead a four-member team of experts.

The BBC reports today.

But in time-honoured BBC-speak they forget to mention that any such investigation, whatever its legal status, should, and surely would, investigate both Israel AND Hamas.

Oh no. This is what the BBC says:

The fact-finding mission, which will aim to provide clarity on the legality of the deaths and destruction…

Of course, that means death and destruction caused by Israel. The BBC has already decided that Israel were murderous, destructive aggressors.  No mention of Hamas yet.

The council voted to set up the investigation into at a special meeting in January, after widespread allegations of war crimes committed by Israeli forces in Gaza.

Widespread by Hamas and the Hamas-infiltrated UNWRA in Gaza and so far all completely refuted.

The Palestinian militant group Hamas is widely accused of basing its forces within heavily populated areas, allegations it denies.

Hah! What a lot of utter garbage. Hamas ONLY fought within heavily populated areas. Hamas is a terrorist organisation. No mention of that.

[Goldstone] is also on the board of governors at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Mr Goldstone said he was “shocked, as a Jew”, to be invited to head the mission.

 BBC-speak to imply that he is shocked that his fellow Jews are war criminals.

“I’ve taken a deep interest in what happens in Israel. I’m associated with organisations that have worked in Israel.

“And I believe I can approach the daunting task that I have accepted in an even-handed and impartial manner.”

 So the able Mr Goldstone falls straight into the trap set by the UN. As a Jew, if his little group concludes there were war crimes, then his findings will carry more weight because he is a Jew. If they find Israel did not commit war crimes he will be pilloried by the usual suspects as being biased because he is a Jew. It’s the same trick the Nazis used when they appointed Jewish police officers in the ghettos. And Goldstone fell for it. Or, maybe, he thought that if he didn’t accept, than someone less neutral would lead the investigations. Precisely the dilemma he was tricked into.

Am I being paranoid. You bet I am. Will Israel co-operate? Should it? 

“This committee is instructed not to seek out the truth but to single out Israel for alleged crimes,” said Yigal Palmor, spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry.

So he’s made up his mind.

Child axe murder was a “natural reaction”

02/04/2009 / / 0 Comments

Hamas believe that splitting the skulls of teenage boys is understandable.

The Jerusalem Post reports:

This attack was committed in the framework of the resistance,” Ayman Taha, a spokesperson for the group said. “This is a reaction to the continuing occupation and the continued building of settlements.”

“This is a natural reaction,” he said, “especially against the backdrop of Israeli attacks. We are a people occupied, and it is our right to defend ourselves and to act in every way and with every means at our disposal in order to defend ourselves.”

Thus any act, however depraved, is justifiable. This is the rhetoric of an organisation supported by millions across the world. An organisation as murderous as it is immoral.

Let’s not forget they also attacked a seven year old. And let us not forget that this boy’s father is serving a prison sentence as a terrorist for plotting to blow up a Palestinian school. A plot that was thwarted by the Israeli police.

Now just reverse the roles. Do you see any Palestinian terrorists in prison in Palestine? Did the Palestinian police ever thwart a terrorist attack on Israel, or do they just aid and abet?

Headline at the BBC website: “Israeli boy killed on West Bank”. Note “killed” not “murdered”. And try to find that story today – it suddenly disappeared and has been replaced by “Livni condemns new Israeli leaders” and the Lieberman arrest.

“Israel must agree to its own destruction” – Arab League

01/04/2009 / / 0 Comments

The Arab League meeting in Qatar has come up with an ultimatum for Israel. No negotiations, just a restatement of how it believes Israel should agree to its own destruction. If Israel does not agree to its own destruction the generous offer will be withdrawn. This ultimatum is based on the 2002 Saudi “peace initiative”.

1. Israel withdraw to 1967 borders.

No mention of security – just a unilateral withdrawal from the Golan, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

2. Israel agrees to accept back “war refugees”.

So let’s see, the Arabs will decide who is a war refugee going back to 1948 and presumably all their descendants. Of course this would mean the influx of about 2 million Palestinians. Where would they go? Why would they want to be residents of Israel? The answer is simple: destroy Israel demographically. Apart from the crippling effect on the Israeli economy, apart from the obvious dangers to Jewish Israelis of allowing in 2 million people, many of whom are sworn to destroy them, apart from the fact they will be able to establish a political bloc that will quickly destroy the Jewish majority and therefore the very basis of a Jewish state and Zionism itself.

But this is what they want to do, of course, and this is what much of the world wants to see. State Number 1: Israel, a democracy where Jews and Muslims and Christians etc. can live together in peace and harmony until the Muslims become the majority.  State Number 2: a Judenrein Palestinian Muslim state with a Christian minority under siege and where Jews will not be welcome or choose to live at their peril.

This will lead to State Number 3: a confederation of States 1 and 2 called Palestine where Jews will be a minority, their property confiscated, the democratic government overthrown, Jews banned from public office, Jews driven into the sea, Jews murdered etc. etc. End of the Zionist dream.

Meanwhile Israel today is called ‘”apartheid” and “racist” but the PA and a future Palestinian state will not be? After all the Jews will have deserved everything they get for their 100+ year struggle to defend themselves and find a few thousand square kilometres of land where they can exercise self-determination in their ancestral homeland.

No one will cry for the Israeli Jews as their remnants make their way to America and Europe where they will face a growing Islamist threat and once again become a persecuted minority in the lands of their great grandparents or swell the former “Israel lobby” which will now be honestly called the “Jewish lobby”.

3. Israeli acceptance of a Palestinian Arab state on the West Bank and Gaza with Jerusalem as its capital.

This, at least, is approaching reasonable, but to make any part of Jerusalem Judenrein, as no doubt would happen, is not negotiable. When in history has a single, small city been the capital of two countries? See points 1 and 2 above. All part of the Palestinian master plan to deligitimize Israel and the centrality of Jerusalem as the capital of a Jewish state.

If Israel agrees to all three points of the ultimatum the Arab states would begin a peace agreement with Israel and “consider the Arab-Israeli” conflict ended. Well they might do. Israel would effectively be destroyed. And what of the jihadis and wahabis, the terrorists and the Islamists who will pour across Israel’s borders to wreak havoc on its cities? Would Palestine guarantee Israel’s safety? Would thay stop Hamas? Hezbollah? Islamic Jihad? Al Qaeda? Iran? and every other genocidal nut from finishing the job of eviscerating Israel.

So thank you Arab League. What a wonderful plan for peace and security. Peace and security for everyone except Israelis, that is.

Palestinian Youth Orchestra shut down by bigots

01/04/2009 / / 0 Comments

I recently reported here how youth orchestra leader Wafa Younis took her music to Holon where the orchestra sang and played to Holocaust survivors. The orchestra comes from Jenin. Ms Younis did take the opportunity to sing for peace, the release of Gilad Shalit and also berate her audience about injustices against her people in the West Bank.

But Arutz Sheva reports:

Fatah-linked community leaders in the PA-controlled city of Jenin slammed the participation of 13 young local musicians aged 11 to 18 in a “Good Deeds Day,” held at the Holocaust Survivor’s Center in Holon.

The PA politicians made a point of using the issue of the young musicians’ performance as a platform upon which to launch a diatribe against participation in any integrative activity with Jewish Israelis.

Observers noted that Palestinian Authority leaders speak to United States officials about the “vision of two states for two peoples, living side by side in peace and security” but when it comes down to actually allowing their children to participate — let alone encouraging such activity with Israelis — they sing a different tune.

Ms Younis has had her apartment “sealed” and she is banned from entering Jenin. Once again, as with Fatah’s policy of not allowing their citizens to receive treatment in Israeli hospitals (see my article here) they are not only further immiserating the lives of their own people but deterring any moves toward any sort of rapprochement or mutual understanding, the very sort of policy and initiative it is vital to pursue to prevent generation after generation being brought up on hate and alienation from their neighbours.

It is clear that Fatah are not interested in anything which compromises their true agenda; to destroy Israel by stealth in parallel to the agenda of Hamas and Hezbullah who want to destroy Israel by military means.

Fatah complain they have no true peace partners. It’s a shame that the peace negotiations don’t take place between the real peace-loving people of Palestine and Israel rather than their leaders, entrenched as they are in their own ideologies and political posturing. OK. Too simplistic. But if youth are shown such awful examples of bigotry what hope is there.

Soldiers Speak Out

30/03/2009 / / 0 Comments

A new website has been launched by IDF soldiers to redress the balance and speak out about the moral actions of Israeli soldiers.

See an interview on Jerusalem Post here

Visit the website here.

Listen to their stories. 

Make up your own mind.

Also, read this article in the Jerusalem Post.

Now tell me who is moral and who is immoral?

Israelis and Palestinians – surprising examples which challenge preconceptions

29/03/2009 / / 0 Comments

Two events happened recently in Israel which in their own strange way debunk some myths about how  Israelis treat Palestinians, especially Israeli Arab, and how Palestinians view Israelis.

First story in Ha’aretz: Violent settlers freed over ‘improper’ police conduct.

Apparently Israeli police in Kfar Sava have been using entrapment; not against Palestinians but against Israeli Jewish settlers.

The story does not show either the settlers or the police in a particularly good light.

The police posed as Palestinians in an illegal West Bank settlement. Note that it is designated illegal by Ha’aretz. Others would disagree. The police were pretending to fix a tyre. Now, if you remember, recently two policeman were killed by Palestinians they went to help who were pretending to fix a puncture. (This itself says something of the dangers of being ‘nice’ to Palestinians when a minority are prepared to kill you for it.) The settlers attacked the police who they thought were Palestinians and vandalised the (unmarked police) car. The police promptly arrested them.

The settlers were freed because of the provocation. The police were reprimanded by a judge for endangering life recklessly – their own.

Now although this is somewhat unsavoury the police were acting to protect Palestinians from extremist Jewish settlers by provoking them to expose themselves by this ruse. When do we hear about such things in the UK press? Most would find it unbelievable that Israeli police are trying to root out extremist Jews to protect Palestinians in the West Bank.

Police sources told Ha’aretz that the technique is established and effective when it comes to the arrest of settlers involved in attacking Palestinians.

says Ha’aretz. Sometimes, despite the attempts to characterise Israelis as ethnic cleansers, apartheid-mongers and worse, stories like this show us that things are not as black and white as you might think. Despite the dubious nature of the strategy it puts the police in a positive light, don’t you think?

Second an Associated Press story on yNetNews.com:

A Palestinian youth orchestra from Jenin travelled to Holon in Israel to sing and perform for Holocaust survivors. Just read that sentence again.

Strings for Peace, youth orchestra from Jenin refugee camp, gives touching musical performance for Holocaust survivors in Israeli town Holon as part of Good Deeds Day. Zeid, one of musicians in group: Only people who have been through suffering understand each other….

the youths had no idea they were performing for people who lived through Nazi genocide — or even what the Holocaust was.

One of the pupils expressed sympathy and was shocked at learning the story of the elderly survivors. Some had never met ordinary Israelis before. The Holocaust is not taught to Palestinians and Denial is commonplace.

The audience were shocked when they learned the youths were from Jenin but when it was announced they would sing for peace the audience burst into applause.

“I’m here to raise spirits,” Younis [the conductor] said. “These are poor, old people.”

If only there were more events like this to bring these two peoples together. It should be noted that this event was part of a programme organised by Shari Arison, a wealthy Israeli business woman as part of the annual Good Deeds Day events.

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