Daphne Anson: The Hand That Rocks Wikipedia ...

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)

Sunday 24 November 2013

The Hand That Rocks Wikipedia ...

Among the more eyebrow-raising of the referees enlisted by peripatetic – recently in South Korea, he's since been on a lecture tour of Algeria – anti-Zionist crusader the Reverend Stephen Sizer, to convince his diocesan bishop that, contrary to perceptions by the Board of Deputies of British Jews (among others), he's not antisemitic, is retired aerospace engineer Tony Gratrex.

Mr Gratrex wrote in part in his letter to "Dear Bishop Christopher":

"In the late 1960's I lived close to Dachau whilst working in Munich. This gave me the opportunity to visit the concentration camp there many times.

Each time I visited the camp I would a[l]ways ask myself the same question; what were the Christian Church leaders in Germany doing at this time? The answer was, keeping their heads down most of the time.

Then I found out there were some few like Dietrich Bonhoeffer who didn't. In the early 1980s I was living and working in Israel. It was only then that I became aware of the history of what happened to the Palestinians....

For me Stephen Sizer is another Dietrich Bonhoeffer, but I pray there will be a better outcome.

Oh! the ironies of history."

It hardly takes a Mensa IQ to recognise, and reject, the repellent analogy implied.

A blogpost on Harry's Place stated, inter alia, a couple of years ago,

"Gratrex is an organiser for the Reading Palestine Solidarity Campaign. Reading PSC [which unlike many if not most PSC branches does not shrink from linking on its website to overtly antisemitic material, causing concern even to a prominent anti-Zionist Jew, as seen in this JC blogpost dating to 2010 and its comments] keeps tabs on the Viva Palestina convoys, and is very supportive of their work.Gratrex has also been a guest speaker at Oxford PSC, attended a branch meeting at Bristol PSC, and was affiliated with the Bristol Convoy of Viva Palestina....

Here is what Gratrex thinks about “the Jews”, in a comment addressed to Jenny Tonge:

I admire the work you do and am in agreement with virtually everything you say except for your attitude regarding the media.

You state that the jews do not control the media but that it is under self censorship. This is patently wrong and only a cursory glance using the internet will show that a majority of the media is jewish owned or controlled.

During the interview you use the expression “who pays the piper calls the tune” and that is precisely the problem when one considers who controls the international banking system.So Jews control the media, global financing, and the world. [Emphasis added here and below]

Gratrex left the comment on the blog of Alan Hart, a 9-11 truther.

Here’s Gratrex on reading about the Holocaust in an article about an Israeli spy in Germany:

With the mention of the holocaust in this article I can only think again of Norman Finkelsteins book; The Holocaust Industry (Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering). How much longer is Israel going to continue to blackmail the world?"

Another blogpost on Harry's Place, by a different author, subsequently added:

'In the original report, Harry’s Place revealed who Gratrex thought controlled the media and international banking ....

Here’s another comment, not in the original report, that Gratrex left on an overtly anti-Semitic blog:

Not all adherents to the Torah are enemies of humanity. You are forgetting the Neturei Karta Jews

Aside from the obvious anti-Semitism of calling all but a tiny handful of Jews “enemies of humanity”, one wonders what attracted Mr Gratrex to this particular blog…'

Reader P, who's supplied me with several screenshots of Sizerisms in the past, has sent me this recent screenshot from Facebook:

Gratrex was commenting following fulminations by Stephen Sizer about changes to his own biographical entry on Wikipedia and on Wikipedia's editing policy:

"I am really sick of the way some people are manipulating my Wikipedia entry. I would be very grateful if some balance could be restored and some of the innuendo, slander and just plain nastiness could be removed or put more constructively ["That unmistakeable odour of Zioslime," commented one of his followers]."

A pro-Palestine activist from Worcester advised that, in response to that lament, he'd logged into Wikipedia to edit Sizer's entry, only to have what he'd written removed:

'....I added information at the end of the "censorship incident" section. I wrote the following:

"Less widely reported is the fact that [Joseph] Weissman’s attacks on Stephen Sizer were conducted from behind multiple anonymous identities and that in addition to his offensive blog (he falsely accused Stephen Sizer of “supporting terrorist activity against Israel”). Weissman himself sought to censor Stephen Sizer’s views, writing letters to organisations hosting Stephen Sizer “demanding that they cancel his appearances”

I used the following two references:

http://www.richardsilverstein.com/.../english-cyberbully.../

http://seismicshock.wordpress.com/.../richard.../

I have just been back to the page and my addition has gone. I found an edit history section in which it appears that the person who I presume has removed my submission has put a comment alongside the record of their edit as follows "(Are you joking? No, this can't be included)".

Do I simply put it back? Do I complain? What is my next step? Any advice warmly welcomed.'

Sizer:

"Yes put it back. This is how the Zionist Lobby try to make Wikipedia their private tool of propoganda [sic]."

Reply:

'So I have just seen! The latest message – accompanied by a warning triangle with exclamation mark.

" Please stop adding unreferenced or poorly referenced biographical content, especially if controversial, to articles or any other Wikipedia page. Content of this nature could be regarded as defamatory and is in violation of Wikipedia policy. If you continue, you may be blocked from editing "....'

Sizer:

'Take it up the food chain. Threaten to have her blocked for arrogance...

I know of some heavyweight 'friends' about to engage with Wikipedia – watch this space..."

Reply:

"My addition has been reinstated again as indicated previously to the censor in a message. I note that she is a very active Wikipedia contributor and so if she were to be blocked herself then I suspect that might hurt. I will pick this up again tomorrow...."

Sizer:

"'Very active Wikipedia contributor' that's how you exert influence - like being a generous donor to a university until they invite a Palestinian guest speaker..."

Sizer again:

"....[E]very initiative puts the Lobby on the defensive. Every proactive step, however small, challenges their position and forces them to be reactive – and remember they are reading this too. Among those who 'follow' me are some known to be working for the Lobby."

Reply:

'I have been back to your wiki entry, Stephen and added the Anthony Julius quote which acknowledges that you reject "any position that threatens the territorial integrity of Israel as a sovereign nation" and describes your work as having “the merit of clearly setting out the issues that divide the two sides, and furthermore doing so without the rancour or sheer nastiness of tone typical of the polemics in the conflict". It might not undo all of the poisonous lies and distortions that have been spewed out but I think it does represent a rational and credible alternative perspective to some of those cluttering up the page.'

Alas and alack!

The official publication date of Anthony Julius's magisterial tome on antisemitism in Britain, Trials of the Diaspora, was May 2010. Since that date (if not before), Sizer has left on record at least one statement undermining the claim that he 'rejects "any position that threatens the territorial integrity of Israel as a sovereign nation"':

Here's a screenshot:

Oy!

I wonder why Wikipedia, being allegedly in thraldom to "the Zionist Jews," has so far neglected to add an amendment pointing that out ...

3 comments:

Ian24 November 2013 at 22:43
Hahaha Dicky Silverstein unreferenced content
He can't even pronounce the name of his blog
http://www.israellycool.com/2013/03/03/richard-silverstein-still-cant-pronounce-the-name-of-his-own-blog/

Jimmy Wales is clearly a Zionist agent
Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales Rips Anti-Israel Lebanese Man A New One
http://www.israellycool.com/2012/03/25/wikipedias-jimmy-wales-rips-anti-israel-lebanese-man-a-new-one/

OT
The ABC has a broken clock moment!
BARRIE CASSIDY: But there are others who would say the West Bank has never been sovereign Palestinian territory?
TANYA PLIBERSEK: You're taking us down a long historic debate here, Barrie, that I don't think we're going to solve on a Sunday morning in the five minutes we've got.
BARRIE CASSIDY: But it is central as to whether or not you support settlements or you don't?
http://www.abc.net.au/insiders/content/2013/s3897763.htm

Poor Baz he'll be off to re-education camp for a few weeks.
ReplyDelete
Replies
Daphne Anson25 November 2013 at 08:28
Thanks for the great links, Ian. Will take a look. I've yet to be convinced of Ms Plibersek's sincere change of heart...
ReplyDelete
Replies

Add comment

Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.

'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)

'This new rise in antisemitism, which I had thought long dead, was not shaven-headed white imbeciles from the far right. It was Muslims, a large chunk of it.... Suddenly I grasped that the British far left didn’t want people to know about antisemitism because it pointed the finger at people they really, really liked. From that moment on, it all fell into place.... Time and again the same tropes emerged, the same sort of stuff that Streicher and Goebbels would have commended – and uttered.... And from that a whole bunch of other stuff emerged: the old blood libel business (a favourite of the repulsive Jenny Tonge).... Nice, avuncular, Jeremy Corbyn, with his peace badges, happily laying a wreath at the graveside of Palestinian terrorists who murdered innocent Jewish athletes, oh, and much much more.... It is the same antisemitism, exactly the same: the obsession with Israel to the exclusion of everything else, the conspiracy theory paranoias, the derangement.... Here’s the test – if you cannot see the flagrant racism in the BDS movement, and if you are obsessed with the perfidy of the Middle East’s only democracy to the exclusion of all else, you are an antisemite. That means a good proportion of the Labour Party, including the leader, and almost all of Momentum: no brown shirts, no marching bands, but the same old filth, dressed in the clothes of a polytechnic geography lecturer.'
Rod Liddle (2018)

'Before the June 1967 Six Day War, there were no such things as "settlements". Palestinians were trying to destroy and displace Israel anyhow. The core problem is not, and never was, "settlements," but the right of Israel (or any non-Muslim nation) to exist inside any borders in that part of the world.
If you take a stand that is based on a lie, then that stand cannot succeed. If you try to oppose antisemitism but pretend it is the same thing as "Islamophobia," then the structure on which you have made your stand will totter and all your aspirations will fail. If you try to make a stand based on the idea that settlement construction rather than the intransigence of the Palestinians to the existence of a Jewish state is what is holding up a peace deal, then facts will keep on intruding.' Douglas Murray (31 December 2016)
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/9685/britain-little-lies

'Islamophobia does NOT come from the same wellspring of hatred as antisemitism. Antisemitism is a true prejudice because the hatred and demonisation it promotes derive entirely from lies and a repudiation of rationality itself.
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.
[L]ethally compromised even-handedness is to misunderstand, and thus minimise, antisemitic attitudes and behaviour while shutting down legitimate and necessary discussion of the threat from the Islamic world – even to demonise as “Islamophobic” anyone who draws attention to the extent and consequences of Muslim antisemitism.' Melanie Phillips (14 December 2016)

Jews have re-assumed the role of the canary in the mine and are the first to be targeted, but the world would face the same threat if Jews did not exist. Israel has been at the front lines confronting Islamic extremism but has received scant support... For Jews, the writing has been on the wall for a long time. The virulence of the antisemitic hatred closing in on Jews in Europe (and elsewhere) is horrifying...
Europe is today facing a crisis as serious as the confrontation with Nazism. If Western leaders continue behaving like Chamberlain and fail to stand up to this global threat, it could usher in a new Dark Age in which the Judeo-Christian culture is subsumed by primitive barbarism. The writing is on the wall Isi Leibler (12 January 2015)

Expose The Lies!

There is a war of lies and deceit on the internet generating unbelievable hate by denigrating and delegitimising the legal rights conferred on the Jewish people by the League of Nations in 1922 and the United Nations in 1945. The idea that there are two narratives on the Arab-Jewish conflict is rubbish. There is only one – the factual truth that details the return of the Jewish people to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in its ancient biblical, ancestral and historic homeland after 3500 years of dispersion with the unanimous endorsement of the nation states then comprising the League of Nations.... Generals can’t fight a war without soldiers. Jews around the world need to join the fight or vacate the internet to the Jew-haters and their lies that repeated often enough eventually become accepted as truth. David Singer (2016)

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.
The narratives did not begin in 1948 – they began in about 1917. How do you make peace with an enemy that has been obsessed with not recognising any Jewish national rights in former Palestine for the last 100 years? David Singer (2016)

The Jews of the Holy Land ... are surrounded by hostile states 650 times their territory and sixty times their population. Yet their last, best hope of ending two millennia of international persecution - the State of Israel - has somehow survived. When, during the Second World War, the island of Malta came through three terrible years of bombardment and destruction, it was rightly awarded the George Cross for bravery. Today, Israel should be awarded a similar decoration for defending democracy, tolerance and Western values against a murderous onslaught that has lasted twenty times as long. Andrew Roberts (historian)

Israel is understandably obsessed with security, but its greatest security lies ultimately not in the Israeli Defence Forces, but in political warfare.... Most of the world is not deeply interested in what happens in Israel, and probably does not want to be deluged with legalistic defences of particular actions. What it wants is a clear, calm, repeated case. It is a case – aimed more at public opinion than at foreign ministries – about freedom, democracy, a Western way of life and the need for the whole of the free world to fight terrorism. Sometimes you hear Israelis say: “It doesn’t matter what we say. The whole world is against us.” You can see why they say it, for they are indeed unfairly treated. But when they say it, they are uttering a self-fulfilling prophecy. If they won’t say what needs saying, no one else will say it for them. Charles Moore (2010)

Once again the armies of the Arab nations are coordinating their military efforts to destroy Israel - whatever they say about wishing merely to regain the lost territories.... [I]f the present Arab offensive had been launched at the pre-1967 frontiers, then the Israelis would indeed have been fighting to avoid annihilation. It seems now that the Israelis were right to maintain the ceasefire lines gained in 1967, and that to do so is the only guarantee of their continued safety.
Alan Sillitoe (The Times, 11 October 1973)

Iran and ISIS are competing for the crown of militant Islam... In this deadly game of thrones, there’s no place for America or for Israel, no place for Christians, Jews or Muslims who don’t share the Islamist medieval creed, no rights for women, no freedom for anyone... [T]he greatest danger facing our world is the marriage of militant Islam with nuclear weapons. To defeat ISIS and let Iran get nuclear weapons would be to win the battle, but lose the war. We can’t let that happen...[T]he days when the Jewish people remained passive in the face of genocidal enemies, those days are over. We are no longer scattered among the nations, powerless to defend ourselves. We restored our sovereignty in our ancient home. And the soldiers who defend our home have boundless courage. For the first time in 100 generations, we, the Jewish people, can defend ourselves....Even if Israel has to stand alone, Israel will stand. But ... I know that America stands with Israel... You stand with Israel, because you know that the story of Israel is not only the story of the Jewish people but of the human spirit that refuses again and again to succumb to history’s horrors. Bibi Netanyahu (12 Adar 5775; 3 March 2015)

The Jews are a peculiar people: things permitted to other nations are forbidden to the Jews. Other nations drive out thousands, even millions, of people, and there is no refugee problem.... [N]o one says a word about refugees. But in the case of Israel displaced Arabs have become eternal refugees.... Other nations - when they are defeated - survive and recover, but should Israel be defeated it would be destroyed.... [A]s it goes with Israel, so it will go with all of us. Should Israel perish the holocaust will be upon us. Eric Hoffer (1968)

Most of the present Arab countries were given their freedom after the 1914-18 War, or after the 1939-45 War.... Yet to listen to Arab spokesmen one might think that they had been cheated ... because they have not also got Israel. Israel is only .2 per cent of the land where Arab States have been established. Surely no fair-minded man can begrudge the Jews their own promised land when it is remembered that for every 2 acres that went to make up Israel, 1,000 acres became Arab.... Why is there an Arab refugee problem? The oil-rich countries have the money. There is no shortage of land, and the Israelis have the technical knowledge to show how it could be developed and made fertile. Bring those things together and the problem could be solved. 3rd Earl of Balfour (1968)

January 7, 2015 has already its place in the history of infamy, but also will be the date when the defenders of freedom and democracy will rise and pay tribute to those who died for their freedom and ours. Therefore, we must not forget on which side we are and who are our allies in the defense of the West and its values. Whether we admit it or not, the West is at war with an enemy who will not stop to destroy us...
The State of Israel boasts a commandment that, in one of the darkest hours in the fight for liberty Winston Churchill taught: "Never give up". Israel has proven to be a key ally in the fight against Islamism and also an example of how a liberal democracy can resist the jihadist stake and thrive as a Western nation ... Not only France but also all the West should look to Israel to defeat Islamism...
friendsofisraelinitiative.org

[I]t’s impossible to believe that an active antisemite wouldn’t – if only opportunistically – seek out somewhere to nestle in the manifold pleats of Israel-bashing, whether in generally diffuse anti-Zionism, or in more specific Boycott and Divestment Campaigns, Israeli Apartheid Weeks, End the Occupation movements and the like....[T]ell me that not a single Jew-hater finds the activity congenial, that criticising Israel can “never” be an expression of Jew-hating, not even when it takes the form of accusing Israeli soldiers of harvesting organs... Howard Jacobson (The Independent, 27 May 2013)

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

Israel is, for us, a normal and a special country. A normal country, because it is just like any other democracy. A special country, because the Jewish culture, which eventually became the Judeo-Christian culture of the dignity of man, is the conceptual foundation of liberalism and democracy. This is why attacking Israel is tantamount to attacking Europe and the West. This is also why disputing Israel's legitimacy and its right to existence means questioning democracy. And this is why we are Friends of Israel. By defending Israel, we are defending ourselves. Marcello Pera

Israel ... is beset today by a unique combination of threats. It must defend its people from attack while defending its very right to exist. No other nation in the world faces this dual challenge. To deny Israel's right to confront some of the world's most vicious terrorist groups in order to ensure the safety of its citizens is to corrode international norms from within ... The assault on Israel is one part of a more general assault on the West, on democracy, and on the moral and cultural heritage that grew from the fruitful interaction of Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome ... Should these efforts succeed, similar efforts will certainly be turned against other western democracies. George Weigel

Apart from America itself, Israel still stands as the world's brightest model of national self-liberation based on ideals of individual responsibility and human freedom. Israel's ability to withstand Arab attempts to destroy it in one of the longest and most lop-sided wars ever fought serves as an indelible testimony to the strength of democratic culture.... We know from the past that the West paid dearly for ignoring Hitler's war against the Jews. One can only hope it will not pay as dearly for having ignored or underestimated for so long the Arab war against Israel and the Jews. Ruth Wisse

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

DISCLAIMER

Commenters are kindly requested to avoid posting material which violates or infringes the rights of others (including their privacy and publicity rights, or which is unlawful, threatening, abusive, defamatory, invasive of privacy, vulgar, obscene, profane or which may harass or cause distress or inconvenience to, or incite hatred of, any person.
The opinions expressed by posters of comments on the Daphne Anson blog are theirs alone, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Daphne Anson. Daphne Anson is not responsible for the content of the comments.
This blog's posts sometimes include links to other websites. Such linked websites will have their own terms and conditions of use and commenters are advised to familiarise themselves with them.
The Daphne Anson blog
* does not sponsor, endorse or necessarily approve of any material posted on this website or on websites linked from or to this website;
* does not make any warranties or representations regarding the quality, accuracy, merchantability or fitness for purpose of any material on websites linked from or to this website;
* does not make any warranties or representations that material on other websites to which this website is linked does not infringe the intellectual property rights of any person anywhere in the world;
* does not authorise the infringement of any intellectual property rights contained in material in other websites by linking this website to those other websites.