Ray Cook - As I See It

Israel, Zionism and the Media

Category: Israel-Palestine (Page 16 of 19)

Relations between Israel and Palestine and the peace process

A tale of two flotillas: Dunkirk and Gaza

27/05/2010 / / 3 Comments

Today marks the 70th anniversary of the retreat of British forces from the beaches of Dunkirk. A heroic flotilla of small ships left English ports to rescue as many troops as they could whilst under fire and bombardment by Nazi forces.

On this day 70 years later a smaller flotilla of just eight or is it nine boats is heading for Gaza with the expressed aim of breaking the blockade and bringing much needed relief to one and a half million starving Gazans. Unlike the bravehearts of Dunkirk, this flotilla will succeed whatever the outcome.

But it’s a big lie, a huge con trick whose underlying intent is not to help Gaza but to demonise Israel and provoke it to take action which will will further damage its reputation. To that extent, it’s little different than a missile fired at Sderot.

Yesterday IDF Colonel Moshe Levi declared “No Humanitarian Crisis in the Gaza Strip”

We do not know of a shortage in any field, and we enable the entrance of various different goods, and also the export of agricultural products from the Gaza Strip. Anything that would help Hamas to increase its military power is obviously not permitted to enter,” said Col. Levi. In addition to that he demonstrated the data collected by the Gaza DCO that shows that 6,000 Palestinians exited the Gaza Strip to receive medical treatment in Israel and Jordan..

Some blockade but it gets better: take a look at the IDF blog for 25th May 2010. I’m sorry, but it’s worth quoting in almost its entirety, it’s just too good to miss:

Food Products and Clothing:

  1. Most types of food are allowed into the Strip, and are transferred by the private sector or by international organizations.
  2. During 2009, 30,920 trucks containing 800,000 tons of supplies were transferred into Gaza. This included fruits and vegetables, meat products, poultry and fish, dairy products, sugar, rice and legumes, flour and yeast, oil, and more. Furthermore, 10,871 heads of cattle were transferred for the Muslim holidays of Ramadan and Eid al-Adha.
  3. In the first quarter of 2010 (January-March), 94,500 tons of supplies were transferred in 3,676 trucks to the Strip: 48,000 tons of food products; 40,000 tons of wheat; 2,760 tons of rice; 1,987 tons of clothes and footwear; 553 tons of milk powder and baby food.
  4. In 2009, 572 trucks containing approximately 5,000 tons of medical supplies entered the Strip.
  5. In the first quarter of 2010 (January-March) 1,068 tons of medicine and medical equipment were transferred in 152 trucks.
  6. In 2009 two elevators were transferred to hospitals in Gaza, as was a CT imaging system (to the Red Cross hospital), and equipment for a mammography machine (which checks for breast cancer).
  7. During the first quarter of 2010 four trucks with special supplies for a project of the “Al Quds” hospital were transferred to the Gaza Strip, and an additional 13 trucks are scheduled to cross.
  8. Due to fears of a swine flu outbreak, three Israeli hospitals were assigned to treat cases in the Gaza Strip and 44,500 immunizations were transferred to the Strip.

Equipment for Essential Civilian Infrastructure:

  1. In 2009 Israel transferred 41 trucks of equipment for the maintenance of the electricity grid, and the state continues to provide approximately 60% of Gaza’s electricity.
  2. In 2009 over 105 million liters of fuel were transferred to Gaza’s power plant and over 3.2 million liters of gas were transferred for UNWRA operations.
  3. In 2009 127 trucks containing more than 3,000 tons of hypochlorite entered the Gaza Strip for water purification purposes. Moreover, 48 trucks of equipment for improving the sanitation infrastructure led to a substantial reduction in the Beit Lahya facility’s waste levels.
  4. As part of the preparations made for winter, 3,607 tons of glass was transferred to the Gaza Strip. According to UN reports, windows in all education and health institutions were repaired.
  5. In the first quarter of 2010 Israel transferred:
    • 250 trucks with equipment for the UNWRA summer camp, including: arts and crafts equipment, swimming pools, inflatable toys, ice cream machines, musical instruments, clothing, sports equipment, etc.
    • Seven trucks with equipment for upgrading the sewage pumping station, which was carried out by UNWRA.
    • 74 empty containers for UNWRA for use in classrooms and bathrooms
  6. Certain types of materials, such as cement and iron, are more restricted. These products are openly used by Hamas for developing its arsenal, building bunkers and launching sites, and making rockets and mortars.
  7. Despite the risk, the transfer of these items is also permitted under supervision, once it has been cleared that these materials are for civilian purposes only. Already in the first quarter of 2010, 23 tons of iron and 25 tons of cement were transferred to the Gaza Strip.

Movement of Residents in and out of the Gaza Strip

  1. Despite the inherent dangers involved, Israel permits Gazans and visitors to travel between Gaza and Israel, from Gaza to Judea and Samaria, and abroad for medical treatment, religious pilgrimages, and business trips. Whenever possible Israel allows for diplomatic activities as well as trade and commerce with the Gaza Strip.
  2. Here are a number of examples from 2009:
  • Delegations from abroad: 21,200 activists from international organizations from over 400 diplomatic delegations were permitted entry into Gaza, and 2,200 Palestinians employed by international organizations were given exit permits from the Gaza Strip.
  • Education, Vacations and Pilgrimages to Holy sites: 147 permits were given to Palestinian students for academic studies around the world. During the Christmas holiday approximately 400 permits were given to visit Bethlehem from Gaza as well 100 permits to travel abroad.
  • Business: 257 permits were given to businessmen from Gaza to facilitate business operations.
  • Sports: Special permission was given to Gazan footballers to train in Judea and Samaria and compete in international matches abroad.

Trade and Commerce

Israel has taken measures to support  trade and commerce, the banking system, and the existing financial market in the Gaza Strip:

  • In 2009 1.1 billion NIS was transferred to the Gaza Strip for the ongoing activity of international organizations and to pay the salaries of Palestinian Authority workers.
  • 40 million damaged bank notes were traded for new bills, and at the request of the Palestinian Monetary Fund, 282.5 million shekels were transferred from Gazan to Israeli Banks.
  • In February 2010 an agreement was reached with the Palestinian Authority’s National Insurance Department to ensure that pensions reached those formerly employed in Israel. The funds were deposited in banks in Judea and Samaria, while the Palestinian Authority was given the responsibility of distributing the funds to the pensioners in Gaza.

    • So, you see, there is no blockade of real essentials. And add to this little lot the stuff still coming through the Rafah tunnels. If you want to see real poverty and starvation take a look at Sudan or Zimbabwe.

    And if you want more proof then take a look at the Roots club website and the video therein.  Someone is doing well in Gaza.

    As I’ve said before, there is still hardship and suffering, I do not deny or belittle it, but it’s no worse than many other countries in the Middle East and elsewhere, and it would be a whole lot better if Hamas were not in charge. But they were democratically elected, of course, just like a certain Austrian who was responsible for Dunkirk.

    But according to the Viva Palestina website:

    [Israel] has turned Gaza into a prisoner [sic] camp and has been carrying out a genocide. This camp and genocidal acts very much resemble Hitler’s actions in history.

    So there you go. You can have a slap up meal in a top-class restaurant in Gaza City just like the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto.

    Surely they can hardly believe their own blatantly anti-Semitic rhetoric.  Israel is committing genocide just like the genocide the Palestinians deny ever happened. Sure takes some warped thinking and an egregious view of history to come to that conclusion. More like quadruple-think than double-think.

    Hamas have killed more Gazans than Israel ever did and the only genocide in the region under contemplation is the one that Hamas and Hizbollah want to commit against the Jews of Israel and beyond, and the first step in this plan is to destroy Israel by all and any means military, propaganda and legal.

    The flotilla knows it is in a win-win situation: if Israel blocks it they have their propaganda coup and if they get through they have a victory against Israel.  No doubt this flotilla will be followed by several more. It’s lucky for the Palestinians that Israel isn’t North Korea or they might have their boats torpedoed; all Israel will do is impound them or let them through.

    Queen’s Speech: Israel’s security not a factor

    26/05/2010 / / 0 Comments

    Am I being paranoid? This is what the Queen read out in the House of Lords on behalf of her new hybrid government:

    “In the Middle East my government will continue to work for a two-state solution that sees a viable Palestinian state existing in peace and security alongside Israel.”

    The peace and security of Israel appears to be secondary when it’s the peace and security of Israel that is at the heart of 100 years of conflict. This does not bode well for Israel. Bu then again, does the UK have any real clout any more in the Middle East, or anywhere else, for that matter.

    Irony lost on Kaufman

    26/05/2010 / / 0 Comments

    No one should doubt the towering intellectual and oratorial skills and abilities of Sir Gerald Kaufman.

    He has been both shadow Foreign and shadow Home Secretary.

    But that was all some time ago.

    At some point, Sir Gerald, never shy to proclaim he is a Jew, fell out of love with Israel and Zionism and espoused the Palestinian cause.

    Well, nothing wrong there. He is quite entitled to believe that Israel’s policies towards the Palestinians is flawed, oppressive or however he preceives it.

    As an MP and a prominent British Jew, and also as person of considerable intellectual talent (Queen’s Oxford), he also has a duty to be fair, reasonable and see the conflict in its proper historical context.

    What he fails to grasp, it seems, (and he is by no means the only British public figure or even Jew to do so) is that he is fatally compromised by not condemning or declaring that Hamas is the root cause of the Gaza situation. By meeting prominent Hamas leaders in Gaza in 2009 he sanctions their actions against Israel and their own people in Gaza. He also ignores an essential point and it is this: Hamas want to destroy not just Israel, but all Jews; they are virulently anti-Semitic and Jews who support them are probably a source of great amusement and ridicule.

    Yesterday, during the debate in Parliament on the Queen’s Speech he took advantage of parliamentary privilege to make a long (over long) speech in which he accused the (Muslim) Liberal Democratic candidate for Gorton of running an anti-Semitic campaign against him during the run-up to the General Election.

    Sir Gerald accused his opponent of targetting Muslim voters and directing them not to vote for Kaufman simply because ‘he is a Jew’. He also accused his opponent of telling Muslim Labour supporters to remove posters from their windows because they should not vote for a Jew.

    I have no idea if these accusations are true; only a full investigation by the Lib Dems (I nominate Baroness Tonge for the task) could find the truth.

    Sir Gerald praised the vast majority of his Muslim constituents for not bowing to the bigotry of the Lib Dem candidate and on that point I can wholeheartedly agree – good on them.

    However, the irony is lost on Sir Gerald. Here was, allegedly, a Muslim telling other Muslims not to vote for a Jew regardless of his track record on Gaza, Palestine and Israel. And this is exactly what all Islamists or fundamentalists or whatever you want to call them, believe: namely, all Jews must die. It’s quite simple; they want to eradicate Jews because that is what they believe their religion teaches them, because that is what radical Imams preach, because they have drunk from the same poisoned well as the Nazis. Israel must perish not just because Jews have ‘stolen’ Muslim land but quite simply because they are Jews.

    I am content for Sir Gerald to fight for Palestinian rights, but I a not content for him to ignore the true intention of Hamas and support a regime who wish him dead as much as they wish to see any Jew dead, except in his case he is still useful to them.

    Palestinian homes demolished – by Palestinians

    18/05/2010 / / 1 Comment

    Well, as they say, you couldn’t make it up. The BBC reports that Hamas have demolished at least seven, and maybe as many as forty, homes near Rafah in the Gaza strip.

    So where are the demonstrators? Where the UN? Where Goldstone? Where the outrage in the blogosphere? Where the BBC news headlines? Where the anger of the Arab street or even the Palestinians on the West Bank? Where, indeed, Barack Obama and George Mitchell? Where Human Rights Watch who condemned house demolitions as ‘collective punishment’?

    Hamas says the homes were built on ‘government land’ and without permits. Sound familiar? When Israel demolishes homes in Jerusalem because they are built illegally and without permits the entire world condemns Israel.

    But it gets even more ironic:

    Club-wielding Hamas policemen – and some female police officers wearing face-covering veils – forced people from their homes and then brought in bulldozers.

    Bulldozers. That icon of Israel ‘brutality’ used against their own people by Palestinian Hamas.

    It seems that Palestinians can do what they like to each other, it’s only when Israel exercises its legal rights that the Muslim world and the world at large is bothered.

    Tells you something, doesn’t it?

    Proximity talks are a charade

    10/05/2010 / / 1 Comment

    So it begins. The political dance. Palestinians and Israelis have to keep the US happy.

    The Palestinians need to show willing because they will get lots of aid and financial support to build a new state in the Middle East with prosperity for all (hmm) without having to concede a single scintilla to Israel.

    Israel needs to be seen to want to talk because they really do want peace and they also want the US to remain on side. But they know, like the Palestinians, that this is going nowhere.

    And the Americans need it to feed President Obama’s naivety like so many before him in believing that both sides want a resolution that does not include the destruction of Israel.

    Yes, that is what is at stake, as ever; the world sees an obdurate Israel.  The reality is a rejectionist Palestine. Any concessions they may squeeze from Israel are merely another tactic, another ploy, another ratchet on the thumbscrew, towards the eventual destruction of the State of Israel.

    Hamas have no qualms. They have told the PA not to have any dialogue with the enemy. At least they and those in the UK who support them are clear: only the destruction of Israel and the subjugation at best and the genocide at worst of its Jews will satisfy them.

    Are the PA really different? There’s the rub. At the moment I don’t think so. They feed their people the same blood-libels, the same lies about Jews and their history, they glorify terrorists. Their methods may be different but their goals are the same – the destruction of Israel by all and any means.

    Israel is well aware of this. The talks are like a dance of death. Unless and until the PA can produce leaders who finally accept the legitimacy of Israel there will never be real peace.

    When friends fall out – Israel, UK and the Dubai killing

    24/03/2010 / / 2 Comments

    You know the story by now? Hamas terrorist arms dealer found dead in a Dubai hotel room. A few days later Dubai declares that more than 20 people with forged UK and other national passports (using names of passport holders living in Israel) were a hit squad and that Mossad, the Israeli secret service, is behind it – or so everyone assumes.

    UK government summons the Israeli ambassador. Two months later UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband announces that the top Mossad man in London has been asked to leave. He gives a severe dressing down to Israel and issues  a warning to UK citizens travelling to Israel that they should look after their passports and be wary of identity theft.

    Israel supporters in the press here and many Israeli newspapers have stated that this is an overreaction, that the UK government is now openly hostile to Israel and this is some sort of conspiracy with the United States to destabilise the Netanyahu government. They tell us how hypocritical the UK is, some Israeli members of the Knesset have even referred to UK politicians as dogs who are pandering to an anti-semitic agenda.

    I too am a strong supporter of Israel but I don’t go along with this paranoia. I also happen to be a British Jew but I am determined that when Israel is wrong I should say so; to do otherwise is dishonest.

    No-one has owned up to the killing of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. So why did Miliband say he has ‘compelling’ intelligence that it was Mossad? Do these who are so keen to shout foul really think that a British Foreign Secretary would make such a statement if he had not be shown evidence by MI6? Israel may even have ‘fessed up’.

    Let’s look at the real issue the UK has with Israel here: several UK nationals have been recklessly put at risk by the action of Mossad (let’s assume this is now fact). These are individuals who have put their trust in the State of Israel. Some are Jews who have settled or wish to settle there, some are not, apparently.  And their recompense for this trust is to risk becoming international criminals.  They were not asked if they want to contribute to the assassination of a Hamas arms dealer, they were abused by the state and Israel was found out.

    Now I know what you are going to say: countries do it all the time and the UK is hypocritical. No matter. If you are found out you pay the consequences. I do not see that the UK could do otherwise. It cannot be seen as an honest broker in the Middle East if it gives Israel a free pass.

    Many commentators say that this is a blow to the War on Terror, and why should anyone cry over the elimination of a terrorist murderer? Not the point. It’s the method, the abuse of British sovereignty by forging its passports and getting caught doing so that is the issue. Let’s just turn it around. If the British had forged Israeli passports in their war on the IRA and used them to assassinate an IRA arms dealer and had been found out, would Israel not be equally aggrieved? Would the UK not have considerable criticism heaped on them from Israel?

    If supporters of Israel see this as part of some plot, some evidence that the UK is about to abandon Israel and stand shoulder to shoulder with the US as they throw Israel to the wolves, they are wrong.

    What we are seeing is a new approach to the Middle East, an approach in which see the resolution of the problem only being possible if the US and its allies can demonstrate that Israel does not get a free pass.

    This is the wrong approach because the real problem is that for 60 years and more the Palestinians have not accepted the right of Israel and the Jewish people to self-determination in their ancestral homeland. That’s the real problem and everything stems from that fact.

    It is that which hardens Israeli policies, it is that which leads to conflict.

    Biden and Bibi love-in scuppered by Israeli incompetence

    11/03/2010 / / 0 Comments

    Oh dear, oh dear. Oy va avoy!

    Here is that nice vice-President Joe Biden arriving in Israel to try to get the annual peace talk talks about peace talk talks going again and what happens? His best pals embarrass him and themselves because Israeli politics seems incapable, sometimes, of understanding what ‘joined-up’ means.

    You should probably know that since President Obama decided that the way to overcome six decades of Palestinian rejectionism was to get tough with Israel, his target for this toughness has been ‘settlements’. Stop! he says, it’s the settlements that are the reason why Palestinians won’t talk or talk about talks. Even though a settlement freeze was not a prerequisite of the many previous attempts to establish a Palestinian state (because, let’s face it, that’s what it’s really about), suddenly, with this brilliant insight, this veritable epiphany, Mr Obama gave the Palestinians, and the world’s press (including some in Israel) an excuse a) to reject and b) beat Israel over the head.

    Along comes Bibi and what does he do? A 10 month moratorium on further settlement construction EXCEPT (and this is a big ‘except’) in Jerusalem (East that is as no-one cares about West). This doesn’t stop the Israelis from finding some excuses, legal or otherwise, of doing some further construction in existing ‘settlements’.

    This moratorium was clearly designed as a sop to the Americans, a supplication to show good faith. It was of course (and understandably) pooh-poohed by Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinian President.

    After much background negotiating the Palestinians at last agreed to ‘indirect’ peace talks. This means they won’t sit with the Israelis but act through an (American) intermediary. Abbas somewhat negatively said that he doubted the talks would achieve anything and should be limited to four months. I won’t discuss at this time the reasons why I don’t think Abbas wants  a deal but at least he is giving the impression that he will talk to someone who will act as a carrier-pigeon to the Israelis who will then indulge in something that is called ‘shuttle diplomacy’ which has been put forward as an Olympic sport for 2016.

    So what happens when Joe Biden arrives to meet his old friend Bibi? Here’s a flavour of the shmooze that went on (get the bucket ready now):

    Prime Minister Netanyahu: Vice President Biden, Joe, welcome to Israel and welcome to Jerusalem.  We’ve been personal friends for almost three decades.  Can you believe it’s been that long?

    Vice President Biden: No, you’re getting older, Bibi.  I don’t know…

    It get’s worse, stay with me.

    Prime Minister Netanyahu: And you remain younger all the time.  And in all that time you’ve been a real friend to me and a real friend to Israel and to the Jewish people and you’ve come to Israel many times since you first came here on the eve of the Yom Kippur War.  But now you’re coming as the Vice President of the United States of America and this is deeply appreciated and for me deeply moving.
    ….

    A tad patronizing, maybe?

    I also appreciate the Administration’s effort to advance peace in the region.  I know that this has been difficult and has required a great deal of patience, but I’m pleased that these efforts are beginning to bear fruit and we have to be persistent and purposeful in making sure that we get to those direct negotiations that will enable us to resolve this conflict.

    I look forward to working with President Obama, and with you and your entire Administration to forge an historic peace agreement in which the permanence and legitimacy of the Jewish State of Israel is recognized by our Palestinian neighbors and in which Israel’s security is guaranteed for generations to come.

    ….

    I think we heard this before – Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush….

    Vice President Biden: Thank you very much.  Mr. Prime Minister, it’s a pleasure to be back.  It’s been too long between visits here and it is true that you and I have been friends a long, long time and a matter of fact, when each of us were in the minority, occasionally I’d get a phone call at home and I’d call you as well to get a sense of what’s going on.  Our friendship is real, but what’s even deeper is the relationship between the United States and Israel.

    ….  The relationship between Israel and the United States has been and will continue to be a centerpiece – a centerpiece of American policy and it’s been that way since Israel’s founding in 1948.

    ….  Bibi, you heard me say before, progress occurs in the Middle East when everyone knows there’s simply no space between the United States and Israel.  There is no space between the United States and Israel when it comes to Israel’s security

    ….

    Well I’m glad he qualified the ‘no space’ thing because there’s plenty of space from where I’m standing.

    President Obama and I strongly believe that the best long-term guarantee for Israel’s security is a comprehensive Middle East peace with the Palestinians, with the Syrians, with Lebanon, and leading eventually to full and normalized relationships with the entire Arab world.  It’s overwhelming in the interest of Israel, but it’s also overwhelming interest to the Arab world and it’s in our interest as well.

    This is what my younger son calls ‘stating the bleedin’ obvious’.

    And so Mr. Prime Minister, toward that end, I’m very pleased that you and the Palestinian leadership have agreed to launch indirect talks.

    This is called ‘bigging up’ in today’s parlance.

    We hope that these talks will lead and they must lead eventually to negotiations and direct discussions between the parties.

    Well, ‘hope’ is one of Obama’s key words and a word that almost defines Israel.

    The goal is obviously to resolve the final status issues to achieve a two-state solution with Israel and a Palestine living side by side in peace and security.

    Something which Bibi is not convincingly signed up to, the two-state solution, that is. Palestinians believe in a one-state solution – Palestine. To think otherwise is dangerous but Israel and the US and the world like to pretend that Abbas and co. are not like Hamas; they want a two-state solution. Yes, but only as a first step to a one-state solution.

    An historic peace is going to require both parties to make some historically bold commitments.

    This means Israel will have to make all the concessions and the Palestinians will reject them as not going far enough. This will be after months of tough negotiations with everyone getting very excited about a ‘peace deal’ only to end in rejection and probably more violence and Israel blamed for not agreeing to destroy itself. Been there before I believe.

    You have done it before and I’m confident for real peace you would do it again.

    See what I mean?

    Over the last year, Mr. Prime Minister, you have taken significant steps, including the moratorium that has limited new settlement construction activity and you have significantly increased freedom of movement across the West Bank.

    O-oh, he mentioned settlements – this was before the Israelis kicked him up the backside and then thumbed their nose at him.

    You still got that bucket ready? Well here goes.

    Prime Minister Netanyahu: I will say that agreements are dependent on the arrangements not on paper, but on the ground.  Here’s a piece of paper that reflects an arrangement on the ground.  We have planted a circle of trees in Jerusalem in memory of your mother; Catherine Eugenia Finnegan Biden because you have said many times that she was a source of immeasurable strength which I recognize in you, Joe.  We planted a tree to serve as a tribute, a circle of trees next to the leaders of the nations.  We have a forest of the leaders of the nations and right next to it are the trees that we have planted in memory of your mother as a tribute to her immeasurable strength and I want to offer it to you on your visit to Israel.

    Vice President Biden: Well, thank you very much.  If you don’t mind my saying Mr. Prime Minister, my love for your country was watered by this Irish lady who was proudest of me when I was working with and for the security of Israel, so it’s a great honor.  Thank you very much.

    (full text here)

    And immediately after this the Jerusalem authorities announced the approval of 1600 new homes in East Jerusalem. This led to an unprecedented condemnation from Biden

    The substance and timing of the announcement, particularly with the launching of proximity talks, is precisely the kind of step that undermines the trust we need right now and runs counter to the constructive discussions that I’ve had here in Israel.

    – he could hardly do otherwise – and the Palestinians latching on to the opportunity to threaten withdrawal from the indirect talks – maybe they’ll agree to indirect talks about indirect talks? After all, it was they who wouldn’t speak directly.

    After all that schmaltz, to have it pushed in your face is unpalatable even for a philo-Israeli like Biden.

    The actual truth about the approvals for more building is that a) Israel has never seen East Jerusalem as a settlement and there is no moratorium in place there b) This was a stage in a long process of approval quite separate from State politics c) Even approved, building may not start for years.

    However, the timing was unforgivable and even though Bibi told Biden that he did not know, there is something rotten in this State when a municipality can cause such a diplomatic embarrassment at such an important time. Furthermore, it serves to confirm all the prejudices of those determined to undermine Israel and gives further fuel to its enemies.

    When will they ever learn.

    Israeli politicians denied freedom of speech

    12/02/2010 / / 1 Comment

    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.

    Ban Ki-moon and the credibility gap

    05/02/2010 / / 1 Comment

    The irredeemably flawed Goldstone Report, which was produced at the behest of UN Human Rights Council, came to the conclusion that both Israel and Hamas probably committed war crimes during Israel’s Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip between December 2008 and January 2009.

    Both Israel and Hamas were charged with responding to the allegations in the report and conducting their own investigations into it to be presented to the UN Security Council.

    The very idea of asking an organisation such has Hamas (which not only brutally represses its own people and murders its political opponents, but is also intent on the genocide of the Jewish people and the destruction of Israel as is written into its own charter and its many public broadcasts), to present a response to the UN is as mind-boggling as it would be for the UN to ask the Taliban to present a report on its actions in Afghanistan.

    Whereas Hamas boasts of its war crimes and comes up with a ludicrous response to the UN, Israel, at least, has spent thousands of hours, conducted hundreds of interviews, brought dozens of indictments against its own soldiers and is still in the process of producing a 1000 page response to the Goldstone report.

    This is what Hamas has to say, as reported by Ha’aretz, and so condemns itself from its own mouth:

    The Hamas report will be submitted to the UN later this week, said the official, Mohammed al-Ghoul. Its argument is that rockets fired from Gaza were meant to hit military targets, but because they are unguided, they hit civilians by mistake. (My emphasis)

    Anyone with even a minimal smattering of law and logic can see not only the contradictions in this last statement but must also see that this lie is so patent and so crass that were Mr al-Ghoul (and what an appropriate name that is!) a wooden puppet his nose would stretch from Gaza City to al Quds!

    IT IS A WAR CRIME TO FIRE MUNITIONS WHICH CANNOT BE GUIDED TOWARDS AREAS OF POPULATION. PERIOD.

    And if they are unguided, how can they possibly be meant to hit military targets!? This is the organisation and these are the people who are being legitimised by the UN just by treating them on an equal footing with a member of the UN. This is moral equivalence of the most pernicious and degrading kind. But Ban says, according to the Jerusalem Post,

    he was uncertain whether Israel or the Palestinians had met UN demands to undertake “credible” investigations into allegations that they deliberately targeted civilians during last year’s Gaza offensive….

    He said he hoped the assembly’s resolution will, in fact, result in probes “that are independent, credible and in conformity with international standards.”

    But, he added that “no determination can be made on the implementation of the resolution by the parties concerned.

    Eh? He may be uncertain about Israel but he must surely be god-damned bloody positive that Hamas targeted civilians because, apart from the overwhelming evidence AND their ongoing operations (e.g. barrel bombs along Israel’s coastline this week), THEY ADMITTED IT AND BOAST ABOUT IT. What the hell does he mean ‘he’s uncertain’? He’ll be wanting an investigation into Copernican heliocentricity soon.

    The Ha’aretz article quotes al Ghoul as saying:

    Palestinian armed groups have repeatedly confirmed that they abide by international humanitarian law, through broadcasting in different media that they intended to hit military targets and to avoid targeting civilians,” the Hamas report stated, citing casualties from “incorrect (or imprecise) fire.

    What planet, indeed, what specie are these people from? The only media broadcasts I know about are vicious, Jew-hating, genocidal, blood-libelling filth.

    This is what Israel has done according to the Jerusalem Post:

    Israel released a 46-page paper last Friday documenting the steps it had taken to investigate IDF actions during Operation Cast Lead, stressing that its military judicial system was independent and came under civilian review, and dismissing four of the 36 allegations of war crimes found in the Goldstone Report.

    The document also revealed that disciplinary action had been taken against two top officers – a brigadier-general and a colonel – for permitting artillery fire near a UN compound in a neighborhood in Gaza City…

    The IDF, meanwhile, is continuing preparation of an in-depth, point-by-point rebuttal of the Goldstone report, which is expected to number over 1,000 pages and be ready within a number of weeks.

    A subtly different response to Hamas.

    It is true that Israel neither co-operated with the Fact Finding Mission led by Goldstone nor does it appear to be intending to have an independent judicial enquiry. Ban appears to be saying that such an enquiry may not be necessary because he has not dismissed the Israeli army enquiry as being an inadequate response; all he says is that response is incomplete, which is self-evident since they have not yet delivered the 1000 page document. Hamas’s report is incomplete because it is a risible heap of bovine excrement and the Palestinian Authority which decided it should have a report to (it can’t let its rival Hamas have all the glory) only began at the end of January!

    It’s not the credibility of Israel that’s is being highlighted here but the credibility of the UN itself and its ridiculous playing out of the farce of a ‘credible’ report from Hamas and giving them the respectability of playing out that farce as if they were a responsible national entity and not a bunch of murderous genocides intent on spreading their obnoxious, pathological hatred of Jews.

    Ban ki-moon? Ban ki-rupt more likely.

    Palestinian TV incitement to genocide

    01/02/2010 / / 1 Comment

    A propos of my last post where I mentioned that Deputy Foreign Minister Ayalon said at Strasbourg to the Council of Europe that the PA should stop incitement and start to negotiate, a typical but particularly nasty example has been reported by Palestinian Media Watch.

    There can be no peace when one side preaches hatred. If such hate speech were used by Jews against Muslims on  Israeli TV what would the world say? But it isn’t possible, because in Israel as in any civilised country it would be against the law.
    If Israelis wanted to commit genocide on Arabs or Muslims, why are there almost 2 million of them living in Israel as citizens?
    There’s only one side intent on genocide in this conflict. When will decent Palestinians have the strength to remove their leaders and find true partners for peace? The conflict would be resolved almost overnight if they could.

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