Daphne Anson: Welsh Dragons Show Their Colours

Eretz Israel is our unforgettable historic homeland...The Jews who will it shall achieve their State...And whatever we attempt there for our own benefit will redound mightily and beneficially to the good of all mankind. (Theodor Herzl, DerJudenstaat, 1896)

We offer peace and amity to all the neighbouring states and their peoples, and invite them to cooperate with the independent Jewish nation for the common good of all. The State of Israel is ready to contribute its full share to the peaceful progress and development of the Middle East. (From Proclamation of the State of Israel, 5 Iyar 5708; 14 May 1948)

With a liberal democratic political system operating under the rule of law, a flourishing market economy producing technological innovation to the benefit of the wider world, and a population as educated and cultured as anywhere in Europe or North America, Israel is a normal Western country with a right to be treated as such in the community of nations.... For the global jihad, Israel may be the first objective. But it will not be the last. (Friends of Israel Initiative)

Tuesday, 31 August 2010

Welsh Dragons Show Their Colours

In 2009, in a small and quaint Welsh seaside resort where Chasidic families from London and Manchester spend a week or two each August, an unidentified teenage yob gives a Nazi salute to an unmistakably Jewish visitor sporting black hat, beard and tzit-tzit. On the lookout for publicity as always, local pro-Palestinian activists immediately write to the local newspaper deploring the incident but (perfectly gratuitously, for the yob had said not one word about Israel) linking it for the sake of their own propaganda purposes to Israel’s actions in Gaza. Early in 2010 the town council in the same locality decides, on the grounds of cost – though some dunderheaded councillors also cite “irrelevance” – to reject a proposal that the town host a travelling Anne Frank Exhibition.

A local shopkeeper, the daughter of Holocaust survivors, is upset with the council’s decision, especially the suggestion that the exhibition has no relevance to townsfolk, and writes to the local paper to say so. Again, pro-Palestinian activists sense an opportunity to spew out anti-Israel propaganda in the paper’s ever-receptive letters columns – and they do. And as usual, letters from pro-Israel correspondents in refutation are ignored by a newspaper whose payroll includes a columnist who not so long ago took it upon himself to launch a spiteful campaign to have the local university divest from Israel.

In that town, according to Yvetta (hat tip: JC.Com Blogs):

‘Quite regularly members of the local Peace Network – perhaps a baker’s dozen of ‘em – gather in the main street and "sing for peace"; basically, they also double as the local Palestine Solidarity Campaign, and so “Free Palestine” and “End the Siege on Gaza” placards always accompany their performances. I tackled them once, during Cast Lead, and was told by a very angry chap with a petition that Israel should never have been created. Now I just give them a wide berth – as do most passers-by.’

This year, at the height of the tourist season, the county council whose catchment area includes the same town enthusiastically provided a prominent town centre venue for Rod Cox’s propagandistic exhibition of children’s drawings from Gaza, held under the auspices of the Aberystwyth Palestine Solidarity Campaign. Yvetta takes up the story:

‘There was an assortment of leaflets on hand demonising Israel and I noticed that one of the captions to the exhibit implied that Jesus was a Palestinian rather than a Jew. I saw a former mayor of the town taking in chairs for the talk by Cox (that came towards the end of the exhibit's stay in town) which he delivered twice. I went along to the first one. A press photographer was snapping the exhibits. Our local Lib Dem MP, Mark Williams, was on hand to express his staunch support for “Palestine Solidarity” and his delight at the exhibition – “a brilliant case for ending injustice in Palestine” - and pledged: “Anything I can do to raise these issues in Parliament, I will do my utmost”. The local Plaid Cymru member in the Welsh Assembly, Elin Jones, spoke similarly, noting that, although international issues are not normally raised in that chamber, an exception was made for Palestine. (Well, how about that!!!) With the enthusiastic help of those two politicians, a plan is afoot to twin schools in Gaza with schools in Wales.’

This school twinning project will almost certainly entail the “Exploring Palestine through Citizenship” online resource issued under the joint aegis of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and the Council for Arab-British Understanding (CAABU). It’s intended for secondary school pupils, and is, from a pro-Israeli perspective, sheer poison, inviting children to role-play the parts of Palestinians and so on, with absolutely no countervailing viewpoint.

Needless to say, the twinning project is an iniquitous weapon for delegitimising Israel, and is also under way in other parts of the United Kingdom. But its apotheosis seems to have been reached in Wales – ironically a country about the same size as Israel – owing to the enthusiastic backing of politicians Williams and Jones, and goodness knows how many other “useful idiots” in influential places. That those “useful idiots” include a number of Christian clergy in Wales I don’t doubt, and I’ll be blogging about the disturbing developments within the Church in Wales very shortly.

2 comments:

SteveR31 August 2010 at 18:52
And I thought the Welsh were the lost tribe of Israel, seems not.
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Daphne Anson31 August 2010 at 20:23
Thanks for your comment, Steve. The Welsh have so many names in common with Jews - surnames such as Aaron, Emanuel, and Joel - and there's a definite philosemitic tradition based on the "Old Testament" (I mean to blog about this some day.) There was the whole question of whether the 1911 "anti-Jewish" riots in the Welsh Valleys were in fact as antisemitic as painted by some historians, since not only Jews bur also non-Jewish shopkeepers were targetted.
Interesting fields for exploration.
It's encouraging to note Yvetta's point that most people give the PSC/aka Peaceniks "a wide berth" - I doubt whether the PSC represents the bulk of Welsh opinion, but the likes of Williams MP and Jones, an Assembly minister, are worrying.
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'For as long as these antisemites wrap themselves up in the Palestinian flag, too many people are willing to turn a blind eye. Only against Jews is this type of racism openly tolerated. It is flourishing in schools, colleges, universities, unions and in city councils. In fact, so rampant is the disease now, in some settings you can be ostracised if you do not partake in the frenzy yourself. Bashing Jews has becomes a trendy position for the ignorant social justice warrior. "Palestinianism" is a viral "ponzi scheme" and as it spreads, it carries antisemitism in the undergrowth.' David Collier (2017)

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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/9685/britain-little-lies

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Islamophobia is a false allegation of prejudice which is deployed to silence rational criticism based on actual facts about attitudes and practices within the Islamic world.
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Expose The Lies!

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The "Apartheid" Slur

The division of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) into three separate areas “A”, “B” and “C” was agreed on by Israel and the PLO pursuant to the Oslo Accords.
95% of the West Bank Arabs live in Areas A and B and their daily lives are under the total administration and control of the PLO since the Palestinian Authority was disbanded by Abbas in January 2013. The PLO has total security control in A and shares security control in B with Israel. Israel has total administrative and security control in C.
Israel is entitled to and will continue to take responsibility for the security of Jews living in the West Bank.
Jews were given the legal right to settle in the West Bank under article 6 of the Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the UN Charter. They did so for decades until they were driven out in 1947 and not able to return there until 1967.
There are Arab roads only in the West Bank that Jews are not allowed to use. Jews are also forbidden from entering Area “A”. Selling land to Jews is forbidden by the PLO under pain of death. The PLO runs the daily lives of 95% of the West Bank Arabs and Hamas runs the daily lives of 100% of the Gazan Arabs. They have been under occupation – and subjugation – by these two evil groups for the last ten years and given no say in their future or any opportunity to elect others to lead them following the disastrous political decisions of their leaders over the past ten years. Hamas and the PLO do not accept the continued existence of a Jewish State and call for its disappearance.
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For Western countries to side with those who question Israel's legitimacy, for them to play games in international bodies with Israel's vital security issues, for them to appease those who oppose Western values, rather than robustly to stand up in defence of those values, is not only a grave moral mistake, but a strategic error of the first magnitude. Israel is a fundamental part of the West. The West is what it is thanks to its Judeo-Christian roots. If the Jewish element of those roots is lost and Israel is lost, then we are lost too. Jose Maria Aznar

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I am duty-bound to defend freedom, culture, peaceful coexistence, the civic education of children, and all the principles that the Tablets of the Law have rendered universal. Principles which Islamic fundamentalism systematically destroys. This means that, since I am a Gentile, a journalist and a leftist, I have a triple moral commitment to Israel. Because, if Israel were to be vanquished, modernity, culture and freedom would also be crushed. Even though the world has failed to wake up to this fact, Israel's struggle is the world's struggle. Pilar Rahola

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