Antisemitism in Australia (video)

In the wake of the recently revealed antisemitic bullying of Jewish schoolchildren, and the supine response of the schools involved, here's the head of the right-of-centre Australian Jewish Association, Sydney medico Dr David Adler, on that topic:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWdsY9SpjiM&t=

Netanyahu and Liberman Must Stop Israel's Third Election This Year

Here's the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.

He writes:

Prime Minister Netanyahu and Yisrael Beiteinu leader Avigdor Liberman have finally met – albeit for just one hour – to discuss the possibility of the 63 votes they controlbeing converted into Israel’s next Government.

It is hard to believe that having made that long-awaited breakthrough – they would be so foolish and obstinate to refuse to compromise their differences to prevent the Israeli electorate going through a third election within twelve months

The direct cost to the Israeli government for new elections, including a budget for the central elections committee and state funding for parties running in the elections, is estimated at NIS 800 million ($220 million).

The greatest loss, however, arises due to the fact that election day is an official vacation day in Israel. The country’s daily GDP is approximately NIS 5 billion ($1.4 billion). Accordingto conservative estimates, election day represents a loss to the Israeli economy of some NIS 1.5 billion ($410 million).

Liberman has publicly laid out his demands for joining the Right-Wing bloc headed by Netanyahu:

• Passage of the ultra-orthodoxmilitary service law, as drafted byLiberman;•civil marriage; [permitting] conversions by local rabbis;

• re-approving egalitarian prayer at the Western Wall;•requiring ultra-orthodox schools to teach secular subjects•public transportation and the opening of mini-marketson the Sabbath.

 These two issues would be left up to local authorities in every municipality, based on who lives in any given town.

 Liberman warned:  

“We won’t accept anything less than this, even if it means sitting in the opposition.”

 Crunch time has arrived.

Liberman has to adopt a more flexible approach and accept less than the ”all or nothing “ stance he has adopted. Netanyahu is now in a much stronger position politically to accept Liberman’s major demand for passage of Liberman’s ultra-orthodox military service draft law – which was the deal-breaker in April.

Liberman voters increased by136684 in September whilst religious parties only increased their votes by 91188 and Likud’s vote decreased by 28835.

Civil marriage and conversions by local rabbis is a curly problem that could be sent to a Committee to consider and come up with recommendations.

Re-approving the Western Wall arrangements should be a formality.

Teaching secular subjects in ultra-orthodox schools could begin with pilot projects in specified schools in particular areas where the ultra-orthodox community do not constitute the majority of the population – perhaps with majority parental approval.

Liberman’s proposals for transport and mini markets on Shabbat happen in many areas now.

There is a pathway t oagreement on these issues that can be achieved with goodwill and a readiness to compromise in recognition of a greater objective – sparing the Israeli electorate anothe relection and the possibility that another deadlock could result.

Israel is surrounded by enemies–especially Iran, Hezbollah in Lebanon and  Syria and Hamas in Gaza that could be tempted to exploit the fractured nature of Israel’s current political circumstances.

There are pressing political issues awaiting Israel’s next Government –most notably negotiations on President Trump’s deal of the century and Netanyahu’s election promise to annex large parts of the West Bank.

Ending this state of suspended uncertainty has now been thrust on the shoulders of Netanyahu and Liberman – following the failure of Netanyahu and Blue and White leader Benny Gantz to achieve a deal they could both live with.

Netanyahu and Liberman would do well to heed the sage advice contained in the Ethics of the Fathers: 

“Do not seek greatness for yourself, and do not lust for honor” 

Achieving greatness and honor togetherby compromising their political expectations will secure Netanyahu and Liberman a special place in the annals of Israel.

Author’s  note:  The  cartoon—commissioned  exclusively  for  this  article—is  by  Yaakov Kirschen aka “Dry Bones” —one of Israel’s foremost political and social commentators—whosecartoons have graced the columns of Israeli and international media publications for decades. His cartoons can be viewed at Drybonesblog

In the Lucky Country, Jewish Schoolkid Forced to Kiss a Muslim Schoolkid's Feet

Back in 2012, I drew attention on this blog to a disturbing trend identified at schools in north-west England.

The repellent state of affairs had been revealed by the noted Anglo-Jewish historian Professor Geoffrey Alderman:

 'Last November, in my capacity as a visiting professor at York St John University, I had the privilege of hearing a presentation by doctoral student Joy Schmack. Mrs Schmack, an extremely experienced teacher and inspector of secondary-school religious education, is researching the use of the word "Jew" in teenage classrooms in the north-west of England. She presented chilling evidence of the unmistakeable revival of the word "Jew" as a common term of abuse amongst teenagers, who apparently habitually use it as a synonym for "cheat" or "swindler", or "snitch". "Don't you dare Jew me", one Merseyside youngster might say to another - perhaps hardly realising the significance of these words.

Scarcely four months after hearing this presentation I received a communication from a retired gentleman whose family escaped from Nazi Germany in 1934 and who now devotes his retirement to talking about antisemitism to youngsters in schools in Cheshire, Merseyside and Lancashire. He had been moved to write to me because of his experience at one such school, where his presentation was discourteously received and where a teacher confessed to him that the word "Jew" had now replaced the word "gay" as a playground term of abuse. The teacher said: "If kids wish to insult each other, they now use (the word) Jew" [Emphasis added]....'

 Now, the Australian Jewish News, in a scoop, reveals the antisemitic targeting that Jewish schoolkids at non-Jewish day schools in Melbourne have been enduring, causing them extreme anxiety and distress, and of the craven, odious response of the school authorities when the abused kids' parents (having tardily learned of the abuse from their persecuted offspring).  That response was basically: "It's not antisemitism, it's bullying, and your kids should learn to toughen up".

They refused one set of parents' request to teach the school body about the realities and consequences of antisemitism.

One of the two kids on whom the Australian Jewish News's spotlight falls is a five-year-old boy who showed every sign of wanting to avoid school, to his parents' puzzlement, until, unable to cope any longer, he collapsed onto the floor one breakfast time telling his mother that she shouldn't love him because

"I'm a worthless Jewish rodent.  I'm vermin."

 The other is a  twelve-year-old keen footballer who was constantly picked on by a pack of bullies who called him such charming things as

 "Jewish ape ... Jewish nigger ... Jewish gimp ... a cooked up Jewish c**t"

They also made his life a misery outside the school grounds, and on one occasion forced him to bow down and kiss a Muslim student's feet, eagerly capturing the incident with their mobile phones (see above).

Jewish daycare education is prohibitively expensive in Melbourne for many Jewish families, but it is heart-warming to learn that this unfortunate young person, who left his school as the result of threats from the principal antisemitic bully's older brother, has with the help of a sympathetic communal leader now found a place at one, as his now-deceased Holocaust survivor grandfather always envisioned.

As for those  despicable school authorities, they might at least have pointed out to their students, assembled together, that Australia's greatest soldier, First World War hero Sir John Monash, was a Jew.

I wonder what the antisemites would have made of that.

Read the schoolkids' sorry saga here 

In London, Noisome Noise Polluters Rant Against Germany and Israel (video)

On Saturday, outside the Goethe Institute in London, a small group of Israel-haters  representing the Islamic-run group Inminds express their hate for both Germany and the Jewish State.

With their ludicrous mind- and ear-assaulting delivery who do these fanatics expect to convert to their repellent cause?

Their warped arguments ate well-glimpsed in Alex Seymour/Seymour Alexander's  introduction to his footage:

'Germany has yet again been cowered by intense pressure from Tel-Aviv and Washington into joining the Zionist campaign against BDS and into believing (or pretending to believe)  the lie that it is somehow anti-Jewish to support the Palestinians' demand for freedom and the return of their land and resources, stolen by the fascist State of Israel. Germany's latest contemptible act of submission to the Zionist diktat is to withdraw the 'Nelly Sachs' literary prize, awarded  to the renowned Pakistani/British author Kamila Shamsie, on the grounds that she is a supporter of the BDS movement. Shame on Germany.  By sucking up to an evil Zionist regime in occupied Palestine today, Berlin thinks we will forget about what Germany did to the Jews between 1933 and 1945.'

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L31swTz-FJ0

The Surging Antisemitism on the American Left

 To my Jewish readers:

A very important and informative long video here, but it need not be watched, just heard.  And heeded.

Chaired by Fred Fleitz, a panel consisting of the following discusses the surging antisemitism on the Left in cahoots with Islam:

Morton Klein - National President of the Zionist Organization of America;
Rabbi Yechezkel Moskowitz - Founder and CEO of MBLA International;James Carafano - Vice President of Heritage’s Kathryn and Shelby Cullo Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy and the E.W. Richardson Fellow;Matthew Brodsky - Middle East expert, geopolitical analyst and Senior Fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jYFnZnd5og

David Singer: Netanyahu and Liberman Could Cut Deal if Rivlin Plan Fails

Here's the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.

He writes:

 President Rivlin’s decision to bring Bibi Netanyahu and Benny Gantz together to see if a Government of National Unity can be formed makes sense in the extraordinary situation that has followed Israel’s elections on 17 September.

Once again neither the Left nor Right wing blocs have won the 61 seats required to form Government.

Rivlin’s proposal however could well founder on the aspirations of Netanyahu, Gantz and Yair Lapid to be the Prime Minister of any such Government and whether that position should be rotated and in what order. During the April 2019 election campaign – Gantz and Lapid ran under a rotation agreement that would have seen Gantz serve as prime minister for the first two years and eight months whilst Lapid took over for the remainder of the term.

Their agreement was key to the merger of Gantz’s Israel Resilience Party with Lapid’s Yesh Atid Party to form the Blue and White Party. In June 2019 Gantz and Lapid pledged they would keep their deal to rotate the premiership if they formed the next government after the September elections.

Now – after those inconclusive elections – Lapid has made this call at a Blue and White faction meeting:

"One person is preventing the formation of a liberal unity government. One person. When faced with the choice between what’s important for the country and what’s important for one person, the country comes first."

Lapid was obviously referring to Netanyahu.

Is Lapid prepared – in the same spirit – to give up his entitlement to be Prime Minister to enable Gantz and Netanyahu to thrash out an agreement?

After that major problem is settled – agreement on policies and infighting for positions in that Government would be fraught with personal rivalries and ambitions.

Paradoxically the election results have broken the April-deadlock that prevented Netanyahu and Liberman forming a Government with Netanyahu as its Prime Minister. The same problems of allocating portfolios in their 63 member coalition would remain – but would be far easier than dealing with 99 members in a coalition of National Unity. Bridging the Netanyahu-Lieberman antipathy divide wouldn’t be easy either.

Liberman’s party did not form Government with 60 other members of the Right last April after Netanyahu refused to accept a bill drafted by Liberman calling for ultra-orthodox Jews to do military service.  Netanyahu was captive to the ultra-orthodox Jews comprised in the Right bloc who threatened to bolt if he wavered. Liberman’s continuing insistence that his military service bill be legislated was countered by United Torah Judaism MK Yakov Asher declaring this the best possible get-out-the-vote campaign the religious parties could wish for.

The religious parties failed big time.

Netanyahu is now in an easier political position to agree to Liberman’s demand than he was in April  – the latest voting results showing:

1. Liberman’s vote increased from 173004 to 309688 – an increase of 136684.

2. The combined votes of the religious parties – Shas and United Torah Judaism – increased from 507324 to 598522 – an increase of only 91198.

3. Likud’s vote decreased from 1140370 to 1111535 – a drop of 28835

The turnout of ultra-orthodox voters opposing Liberman’s bill did not match the turnout of new voters supporting Liberman’s bill and those Likud voters changing their votes for possibly the same reason. The religious parties are now on far weaker ground to oppose Liberman’s reform as they are locked in to a single negotiating bloc containing 55 members - presumably acting by majority vote.

Cutting a deal between Netanyahu and Liberman remains an option to prevent Israel going through this electoral agony for a third time if Rivlin’s call fails.

Author’s note: The cartoon — commissioned exclusively for this article — is by Yaakov Kirschen aka “Dry Bones” —  one of Israel’s foremost political and social commentators — whose cartoons have graced the columns of Israeli and international media publications for decades. His cartoons can be viewed at Drybonesblog

Mick Gets His Sporran in a Twist & Labour Pains Defame Zionism

See what Humphrys means!

Like retired newsreader Peter Sissons splendidly before him (in 2011, to be precise), BBC broadcaster John Humphrys, whose final presentation of the Today program on Radio 4 was last Thursday, has (in his serialised memoirs in the Daily Mail) slammed the leftwing bias of his longtime employer, likening Corporation bigwigs to "out-of-touch Kremlin commissars". 

Although he denies that a leftwing conspiracy exists, he recalls the sombre disbelieving mood at the BBC when Brexiteers won the 2016 Referendum, and he asserts that the BBC is takes care not to offend "fashionable pressure groups – usually from the liberal Left, the spiritual home of most bosses and staff".

Humphrys' choice of final Today program interviewees has had Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign chief getting his sporran in a twist:

And some of his camp followers too:

Now, regarding this, at Labour's party conference in Brighton, Chief Mick states:

To this kind of reception from some of his followers:

 And this kind of further comment from himself:

An aside by the estimable British international politics academic Dr James Vaughan:

 Also at the conference, a vile piece of defamation headed "A Racist Endeavour":

'Thousands of Labour members were handed a shocking pamphlet openly comparing Israel to Adolf Hitler's Nazis ahead of a debate on Palestine ...

An article on the front page of the booklet by Hampstead and Kilburn Labour Party official Moshe Machover stated it was a "well established fact" that "Israel is a racist state."

See Gnasher Jew's thread HERE

The same piece - which calls for the "de-Zionisation of Israel" - then makes a clear attempt to link Israel with Nazism by selectively quoting from academic sources.

.... Mr Machover writes that some of the "harshest condemnation of Israel's racism" were "recognised experts on the history of fascism and Nazism."

He then writes of what he calls a "shocking comparison with Nazism" made by Hebrew University Professor Zeev Sternhell of statements made in Israel's Knesset by two right-wing politicians.

Continuing this theme, Mr Machover, who successfully fought expulsion for Labour over his links to the Communist Party of Great Britain, refers to a 2017 article by Professor Daniel Blatman, who wrote that the "deputy speaker Bezalel Smotrich's admirations for the biblical genocidaire Joshua bin Nun leads him to adopt the values that resemble those of the German SS."

Tel Aviv-born Mr Machover has a previous history of using academic quotes, particularly from Israel, to support his extreme anti-Zionist position.

He concludes by writing: "Uprooting colonialist racism requires a change of regime, decolonisation - which in the case of Israel means de-Zionisation."

Labour delegates debated a motion on Palestine during Tuesday afternoon's session at conference.

During the debate, one member of the pro-Corbyn Jewish Voice For Labour group was loudly cheered as she claimed she was speaking for Jews who had never experienced antisemitism.

Vanessa Stilwell, of Dulwich and West Norwood CLP, said Jeremy Corbyn was "the most anti-racist leader this party has ever had".

Referring to the situation in Gaza, the Labour activist stumbled as she attempted to detail allegations of Israeli attacks in Gaza.

Ms Stilwell is the wife of Glyn Secker - the Labour activist suspended over his 'Jews in the gutter' speech at a Palestine demo, which was exposed by the J[ewish] C[hronicle] in May.

But despite a few cries of 'Free Palestine' from the stage, the debate was largely overshadowed by the continuing divisions over the party's position on Brexit.

In her keynote speech, Emily Thornberry, the shadow foreign secretary, accused Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu of trying to create an "apartheid state" in Israel.

She also referred to the crisis in Gaza - but appeared to make a deliberate effort to stop too much focus on Israel/Palestine in a more general speech about Labour internationalism.'

 Let's leave tireless Corbynista-watcher Gillian Lazarus with the last word on this odious muck:

But on the Labour Jew-baiting David Collier's latest article is a must-read.