"One Side Wants The Other Side Dead" (video)

The always cogent Dennis Prager explains,  in terms that even Al Beeb's Jeremy Bowen (see my previous post) might be expected to understand, why the Middle East problem remains unsolved:

Bibi Reminds Al Beeb's Bowen of the Core of the Conflict (video)

With hectoring naivety, the BBC's Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen interviews Bibi Netanyahu:

And is reminded of the hard facts.

"The core of the conflict is the persistent Arab refusal decade upon decade ... to  recognise the Jewish State in any boundary" ...

"The Most Risible & Incompetent Secretary of State in Living Memory": Kerry & the A word

See Congressman Ted Cruz (Republican, Texas) here in an articulate denunciation of John Kerry's use of the "Apartheid" word in relation to what, according to Kerry, Israel risks becoming; why Kerry's use that word is intolerable; why he should offer his resignation as Secretary of State; and why Obama should accept it.

On the same theme, Canadian broadcaster Michael Coren, more forthright in tone than Cruz (Coren calls Kerry "The most risible and incompetent Secretary of State in living memory") is completely on form here, in excoriating John Kerry's use of the "apartheid"word and pointing out that Kerry "owes Israel and the thinking world an apology"for using an entirely inappropriate word that plays right into the hands of Israel's leftist and Islamic enemies "for their own sordid ends".

Coren's is a must-see video that, unfortunately won't load on my blog.  I dare not attempt to embed it because, as experience has shown me, that manoevre can lead to my blog's format going awry!

The Coren video includes an interview with Professor Aurel Braun, who cogently explains at length why Kerry's remarks were unconscionable.

Amid the widespread condemnation of Kerry's remarks, the State Department has gone into damage control.

He says:

"I will not allow my commitment to Israel to be questioned by anyone, particularly for partisan, political purposes, so I want to be crystal clear about what I believe and what I don’t believe.

 First, Israel is a vibrant democracy and I do not believe, nor have I ever stated, publicly or privately, that Israel is an apartheid state or that it intends to become one.  Anyone who knows anything about me knows that without a shred of doubt.

 Second, I have been around long enough to also know the power of words to create a misimpression, even when unintentional, and if I could rewind the tape, I would have chosen a different word to describe my firm belief that the only way in the long term to have a Jewish state and two nations and two peoples living side by side in peace and security is through a two state solution."

In NYC, Ukrainian Holocaust Survivors & Their Supporters Rally Against Ukrainian Antisemitism (video)

"And one of the things when I think about the Ukraine, and I'm sure there are a lot of wonderful people there, but let me tell you what my mother used to say, that the Ukrainians who worked with the Nazis, were worse than the Nazis. That's what my mother always told us in our home, in terms of brutality and so on."

So declared New York Assemblyman Dov Hikind at a rally in NYC on Sunday morning to mark Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day) and send out the message to contemporary Ukrainian antisemites "Never Again".

Lending their obscene unwelcome presence to the Yom HaShoah commemoration were a group of nutcases from Neturei Karta, waving Iranian flags and screaming their usual invective against Israel and Zionism. 

(Ruptly TV video; hat tip: Vlad Tepes blog)

No Word of Reproach, Vicar?

As I've observed before, the Vicar of Virginia Water, busily crusading against Christian Zionism as usual – in a new video that I really don't want to link to he can be seen on Russia Today decrying it along with interviewer George Galloway – really does need to take stock of his friendships on social media, and banish (or at the very least admonish) the antisemites and conspiracy theorists amongst them. 

The above post by Sizer on Facebook has elicited the following exchange:

Surely there's something you want to say to Nafeh AbuNab, vicar?

(But see also here)

No WSC Please, We're British: English police arrest politician for quoting Winston Churchill on Islam

Yesterday, in the venerable English cathedral city of Winchester, where King Alfred the Great had his capital, and where (legend has it) King Arthur and his knights held counsel around the celebrated Round Table, a British politician, the urbane and prescient Paul Weston, who is hoping to secure a seat in the European Parliament, was on the hustings.

A press release from Liberty GB takes up the story:

'Today Paul Weston, chairman of the party Liberty GB and candidate in the 22 May European Elections in the South East, has been arrested in Winchester.

At around 2pm Mr Weston was standing on the steps of Winchester Guildhall, addressing the passers-by in the street with a megaphone. He quoted the following excerpt about Islam from the book The River War by Winston Churchill:

"How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property – either as a child, a wife, or a concubine – must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the faith: all know how to die but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith."

Reportedly a woman came out of the Guildhall and asked Mr Weston if he had the authorisation to make this speech. When he answered that he didn’t, she told him "It's disgusting!" and then called the police.

Six or seven officers arrived. They talked with the people standing nearby, asking questions about what had happened. The police had a long discussion with Mr Weston, lasting about 40 minutes.

At about 3pm he was arrested. They searched him, put him in a police van and took him away.'

[Update: there's an interview with Weston following his release (after five hours in a cell, and now facing a charge that carries up to two years in prison) here]

Will the totalitarian leftists who have suborned the rights and liberties of English men and women and who are, in consequence, the architects of police-enforced censorship on Islamofauxbic free speech such as this woeful incident (look at how many cops came out on the job!) now call for Churchill's book, in which the quoted passage appears, to be withdrawn from public library and used bookshop shelves?

Were he still alive, would Winston Churchill's grandson and namesake (who died in 2010), be similarly arrested if he was to turn into a public speech the letter that he sent to the London Daily Telegraph in 2007, a letter that appears to have earned him only the cold shoulder from head-in-the-sand fellow members of the House of Commons including those in his own Conservative Party?:

“Britain sends some of the finest and most courageous of their generation to risk their lives and spill their blood chasing the Taliban out of Afghanistan. But who, meanwhile, is guarding our homeland? A recent police report makes clear that, back here in Britain the Deobandi – the very same Islamist sect responsible for spawning the Taliban in Afghanistan – has succeeded in taking over more than 600 of Britain's 1,350 mosques. In addition, it controls 17 of Britain's 26 Islamic seminaries and produces 80 per cent of Britain's home-trained Islamic clerics.

 It's a funny old world, as Margaret Thatcher once famously remarked. Except that this is no laughing matter. Not for 70 years has there been a more clear or present danger to our internal security, to our free society and to our democracy, than that posed by this vipers' nest in our midst. The Deobandi, an ultra-conservative sect, outlaws music, art, television and football, and also demands the entire concealment of women. According to the Lancashire Council of Mosques, the Deobandi has now taken control of 59 out of 75 mosques in the old Lancashire mill towns of Oldham, Preston, Bury, Blackburn and Burnley.

While not all Deobandis are extremist, leading preachers of this sect aim to radicalise the Islamic youth of Britain, and to mobilise them against our society and the freedoms we hold so dear. When will the Government wake up to this mortal threat which – if not swiftly dealt with – threatens to bring strife and bloodshed to the streets of Britain on a scale far exceeding anything seen in the bombings of recent years? Why are Gordon Brown and David Cameron, indeed our entire political class, so deafeningly silent on this, the most pressing matter confronting Britain today? Who will help the moderate majority of Muslims maintain control of their mosques? Who will safeguard the homeland?”

Who will safeguard the homeland, indeed?

Abeyant Abbas

As David Gerstman observes on the Legal Insurrection blog here, Fatah's recent reconciliation with Hamas has excited relatively little media comment, and, moreover,

"The position of the EU endorsing the Fatah-Hamas unity agreement, as expressed by [Catherine] Ashton’s office, isn’t just illogical, it violates the principles the EU once claimed were necessary for peace.

Of course there’s a reason for the silence in the face of this Palestinian rejection of peace....

This is the reality that the peace processors refuse to accept. Since 1993 the Palestinians have made no significant, lasting concessions to Israel. (And the ones that they made were violated repeatedly.) If this is true they’ve been spinning their wheels for the past twenty years or more. It’s much easier to blame Israel that to re-examine their own assumptions. Israel can always be persuaded or pressured to make some concession to keep the illusion of a process going. So the charade continues."

Now, it's not often I find a praiseworthy article in the leftwing and frequently downright poisonous (to its country's own interests) Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz, but (hat tip David Gerstman's post citing Professor William Jacobson here) columnist Avi Shavit has perceptive points to make about Mahmoud Abbas.

Shavit's article, recounting the milestone moments since 1997 when Abbas appeared to have
"overcome the ghosts of the past and the ideas of the past, and was willing to build a joint Israeli-Palestinian future, based on coexistence," concludes that such appearances, and the hopes they raised among Israelis, are chimeric:

"....In early 1997, Yossi Beilin decided to trust me, and show me the document that proved that peace was within reach. The then-prominent and creative politician from the Labor movement opened up a safe, took out a stack of printed pages, and laid them down on the table like a player with a winning poker hand.

Rumors were rife about the Beilin-Abu Mazen agreement, but only a few had the opportunity to see the document with their own eyes or hold it in their hands. I was one of those few. With mouth agape I read the comprehensive outline for peace that had been formulated 18 months earlier by two brilliant champions of peace — one, Israeli, and one, Palestinian. The document left nothing to chance: Mahmoud Abbas is ready to sign a permanent agreement.....

If we could only get out from under the Likud’s thumb, and get Benjamin Netanyahu out of office, he will join us, hand in hand, walking toward the two-state solution. Abbas is a serious partner for true peace, the one with whom we can make a historic breakthrough toward reconciliation.

We understood. We did what was necessary. In 1999, we ousted Likud and Netanyahu. In 2000, we went to the peace summit at Camp David. Whoops, surprise: Abbas didn’t bring the Beilin-Abu Mazen plan to Camp David, or any other draft of a peace proposal. The opposite was true: He was one of the staunchest objectors, and his demand for the right of return prevented any progress.

But don’t believe we’d give up so quickly. During the fall of 2003, as the Geneva Accord was being formulated, it was clear to us that there were no more excuses, and that now, Abbas would sign the new peace agreement and adopt its principles. Whoops, surprise: Abu Mazen sent Yasser Abed Rabbo (a former Palestinian Authority minister) instead, while he stayed in his comfy Ramallah office. No signature, no accord.

But people as steadfast as us don’t give up on our dreams. So in 2008 we got behind Ehud Olmert, and the marathon talks he held with Abbas, and the offer that couldn’t be refused. Whoops, surprise: Abu Mazen didn’t actually refuse, he just disappeared. He didn’t say yes, he didn’t say no, he just vanished without a trace.

....In the summer of 2009, we even supported Netanyahu, when he made overtures to Abbas with his Bar-Ilan speech, and the settlement freeze. Whoops, surprise: the sophisticated objector didn’t blink, or trip up. He simple refused to dance the tango of peace with the right-wing Israeli leader.

Have we opened our eyes? Of course not. Again, we blamed Netanyahu and Likud, and believed that in 2014, Abu Mazen wouldn’t dare to say no, not to John Kerry. Whoops, surprise: In his own sophisticated, polite way, Abbas has said no in recent months to both Kerry and Barack Obama. Again, the Palestinian president’s position is clear and consistent: The Palestinians must not be required to make concessions. It’s a complicated game – squeezing more and more compromises out of the Israelis, without the Palestinians granting a single real, compromise of their own.

Take heed: Twenty years of fruitless talks have led to nothing. There is no document that contains any real Palestinian concession with Abbas’ signature. None. There never was, and there never will be...."

 Like Beilin, he (i.e. Shavit) himself has been taught that lesson through repeated experience:

"But many others haven’t learned a thing. They’re still allowing Abbas to make fools of them, as they wait for the Palestinian Godot, who will never show up."

Indeed, regarding his trickiness it's worth remembering such statement's of Abbas's as these (hat tip: B.C.).

First, in defending his “recognition” of Israel on TV network Al-Arabiya in October 2006, he explained that it was more a practical reality than a meaningful political position, citing as an example the need for the Palestinian Authority to procure $500 million from Israel: “The Palestinian finance minister has to come to an agreement with the Israeli finance minister about the transfer of the money. So how can he make an agreement with him if [the PA finance minister] does not recognize him? So I do not demand of Hamas nor any other to recognise Israel. But from the government that works with Israelis in day to day life, yes.” (See here)

Second, defending his “recognition” of Israel on TV network Al-Arabiya in October 2006, he [Abbas] explained that it was more a practical reality than a meaningful political position. He cited as an example the need for the PA to get $500 million from Israel: “The Palestinian finance minister has to come to an agreement with the Israeli finance minister about the transfer of the money. So how can he make an agreement with him if [the PA finance minister] does not recognize him? So I do not demand of Hamas nor any other to recognize Israel. But from the government that works with Israelis in day to day life, yes.”  Abbas even said that the Qassam rockets being fired from the Gaza Strip at Israel are "Israel's problem" and that he does not intend to interfere. "Let the Israelis deal with it," he said.  (See here)

As William Jacobson remarks:

"With Abbas’ latest move of a unity government with Hamas and Islamic Jihad, maybe it finally will sink in, Bibi is not the problem." [Emphasis added]

"If Sharia Law Ever Were To Formally Become Part of Our Legal System It Would Not Exit That Legal System Quietly": A British lawyer's chilling warning

http://www.onelawforall.org.uk/letter-to-the-justice-ministry-on-sharia-law-from-anne-marie-waters/

Rejoice, rejoice!  (And if you're female, dance a jig.)  A fightback has begun in Britain against the creeping inroads of the Islamic injustice system.  Britain's bulldog spirit is not yet dead! At least not on the part of some of the country's best and brightest, a number of whom (and this comes as no surprise, given the inferior status of women in Islamic law and practice) are female.

Yesterday, on the premises of the British House of Lords, a crucial new initiative called "Sharia Watch UK" was launched, and not before time.

As reported here (where several useful relevant links such as this are posted):

'The new organisation will campaign for recognition of the dangers posed by sharia law in the UK, particularly in relation to women’s rights.... The event was hosted by Baroness Caroline Cox who has campaigned against the use of sharia law in tribunals and councils across the UK.  Lady Cox has argued that sharia law “undermines the most fundamental principles of equality enshrined in British law” in respect of its treatment of women.

The new Sharia Watch UK web resource aims to highlight the impact of Islamism in Britain, and the often hidden face of is proponents.  Sharia tribunals and councils currently operate a system of family law in the UK which denies women unilateral divorce rights – even in cases of domestic violence.  Sharia family law also denies child custody to women and treats their testimony as worth less than that of their husbands....

Sharia Watch UK will show the public, and our political leaders, the extent of the threat that sharia and Islamic extremism pose to the rights and freedoms of women, freedom of speech, and democratic principles....'

 Concurrent with the launch, a report entitled "Sharia Law – Britain’s Blind Spot", has appeared:

 'It]analyses the beliefs of apparently “mainstream” Muslim organisations and argues that such beliefs represent an extremist view and should be regarded as such.  Some of the senior figures involved in these groups advocate not only sharia law, but “jihad” against non-Muslims.  Furthermore, they express a desire for a full Islamic state – including barbaric punishments – in Britain.  Such groups have been represented as “moderate” and endorsed by the legacy media and mainstream public figures.'

At the launch of the new initiative, Charlie Klendjian, Secretary of the Lawyers' Secular Society (LSS)  made an impressive must-read speech, in which he noted inter alia:

".... Political Islam, a crucial plank of which is sharia law, presents what we can calmly describe as “a unique set of challenges” for the 21st century.

Sharia law is perhaps the most serious political, legal, moral and social issue we face – and when I say “we” I do not mean lawyers, or secularists, but sadly humanity itself.

I am very pleased that this group has been set up, and with the participation of parliamentarians, because a political response is sorely needed to what is essentially a political threat, and a very grave one, to our way of life.

To the extent there’s any consensus on sharia law amongst our politicians at the present time it’s a consensus, at best, of collective head‐burying in sand and at worst, a consensus of positively encouraging and facilitating sharia law; of giving it the oxygen it craves.

This worrying trend must be reversed, and at some tempo, and I hope today might be the beginning of that process ....

Through the work of Baroness Cox and Anne Marie Waters, and many other fine individuals, we have seen the mayhem that sharia law is already creating in our jurisdiction – and remember, this is when it has the status of theology.

We know that women and children routinely have their fundamental legal rights violated in sharia councils, be it because of duress, because of an inequality of bargaining power, or because of a simple ignorance of their rights under English law. And so we can ask another question: “If this is the mayhem created when sharia law has the status of theology, dare we imagine what kind of mayhem it might create as law?"....

Make no mistake, if sharia law ever were to formally become part of our legal system it would not exit that legal system quietly. Indeed, this country might even require some form of civil disorder or something akin to a violent revolution to remove sharia law from our legal system.

Once sharia law is formally within our legal system there will follow a process of contagion to other areas of our legal system.

This is as inevitable as day following night.

It will spread to the criminal law.

And to those who dismiss these fears as pie‐in‐the‐sky, tabloid scare‐mongering, or “illinformed”, and who say, “Charlie, this could never happen, you’re just being silly now”, I say this: I didn’t think the Law Society would issue Sharia guidance on how to discriminate against women and non‐Muslims. Did you?”....'  [Emphasis added]

 Read all of Charlie Klendjian's important, admirable, courageous speech here

"I Think Israel Has Become A Proxy For People To Express Their Own Sense Of Western Self-loathing"

"It's very fashionable these days to be against Western modernity, to see the modern world as destructive and problematic.  Some time over the past 20 years the meaning of what is to be radical changed to self-loathing, to hate your own history, to hate your own nation.

What I think Israel represents to a lot of Western radicals and others is the kind of most outward symbol of that old-sense Western modernity.  It's seen as obsessed with sovereignty, obsessed with national territory, brutally progressive, capitalistic and constantly talking about freedom – all those things that we in the West used to do, but we don't anymore because apparently we grew up.

I think Israel has become a proxy for people to express their own sense of Western self-loathing.  I think it is the reason that so much contempt is visited upon Israel.  More than North Korea, more than China, more than Belarus, and more than any other country, because Israel is seen as doing all the things that civilised Westerners don't think we should do anymore."

So says Brendan O'Neill, editor of Spiked online magazine, who's currently in Australia, in an interview with the current, hot-off-the-press Australian Jewish News.

As the following excerpt from the transcript shows, Mr O'Neill was the only panellist who spoke up in support of Israel during the egregiously biased Q&A program earlier this week, about which I blogged here:

 BRENDAN O'NEILL [to former Aussie foreign minister Bob Carr, a fellow panellist]: Well, the suggestion in your book is actually that foreign policy was effectively outsourced to these groups and that's something slightly different than what you're saying now because what that echoes, in my mind, is this old, quite ugly prejudice about Zionist groups or Jewish groups being the puppet masters of politics and that is a prejudice that has...

BOB CARR: But I don't hold that view. I’ve never held a view remotely like it.

BRENDAN O'NEILL: No, but it is the impression one gets from your book, where you talk about the outsourcing of Australian policy on the Middle East to these groups and there are a lot of lobby groups in the world. They lobby on all sorts of issues but it’s always the Jewish lobby or the Israel lobby that is depicted as being particularly sinister, blackmailing politicians, controlling politicians, making politicians fall at their feet and I think that's a real double standard on Israel at the moment. Not only is their lobby group treated as uglier than every other lobby group but also Israeli artists are the only ones who are generally boycotted by trend westerners. Israeli academics are boycotted, whereas other academics from very authoritarian countries are not. There is a real double standard in Western discussions about Israel at the moment and I think that does come across in some of your commentary on...

BOB CARR: Well, hold on. Hold on.

BRENDAN O'NEILL: ...on these groups. And what I would say is there is – I come from a continent where there is a long history of blaming Jewish or Israeli groups when political things don't go your way. There is a long history of that and it has - and it’s an ugly history and I would just say if you failed to convince Julia Gillard to go with your view of what happened to the Middle East, that's your fault. Don't blame these lobby groups.....

 BRENDAN O'NEILL: I think, you know, Nigel [Kennedy, a fellow panellist, and fervent BDSer] talks about being censored by the BBC, but now you know what it feels like to be an Israeli academic or an Israeli artist or an Israeli actor.

NIGEL KENNEDY: Or a Palestinian actor though.

BRENDAN O'NEILL: Because when they come to Britain to do Israeli performances, they are jeered off stage. They are booed off stage. An Israeli violinist was booed out of the Proms. So that is what the BDS is about. It’s about censoring Israeli voices and it’s a very authoritarian approach. I don't think people who criticise Israel are anti-Semitic at all but I am concerned about the way in which criticising Israel has become the most trendy, fashionable cause amongst every leftie in the west, above everything else, and it’s people are - now define themselves through their loathing of Israel. You are basically not allowed into polite society these days unless you are, you know, signed up critic of Israel and that, I think, is damaging because it imbues the conflict in the Middle East with this kind of great western kind of culture war. It turns an ordinary war into culture war. It entrenches both sides and it makes a solution actually more difficult."

Alas, Mr O'Neill is too trusting.  Sure, criticism of aspects of Israeli policy is not necessarily antisemitic.  But his stated assumption that Israel's critics "are not antisemitic at all" is naive and jejune, one that can be ardently contested, especially as seen in the true aims of the BDS movement.

The grandson of refugees from Nazism, Nick Dyrenfurth, an adjunct research fellow at the National Centre for Australian Studies at Monash University in Melbourne who happens to be opposed to the "Occupation" and (like O'Neill, if I read him correctly) is hardly on the political right, has written a rather fine article on the BDS movement and the Jake Lynch affair in which he states, inter alia:

'....Do not buy from Jews! Eight decades on, it still requires a leap of imagination to believe that those five words once dotted the shopfronts of Europe’s economic, cultural and intellectual epicentre. My grandparents literally saw the writing on the wall, fleeing to London with thousands of other Jewish refugees in the late 1930s. Remarkably, just a few generations after the horrors of Nazism, cosmopolitan Berlin can boast one of the fastest growing Jewish communities in the world. Elsewhere, however, Europe’s future seems to beckon to its torturous past....

Yet it is not the usual suspects on the right that are arguably causing the most angst among the Jewish diaspora, or indeed Jews in Israel. That honour goes to the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement associated with elements of the global left....  

In fact, the BDS campaign possesses three specific aims. The first is to end the Israeli occupation of lands occupied in the 1967 war, including East Jerusalem, and dismantle the West Bank security barrier. The second is to achieve full equality for the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel. Finally, there is its demand of a “right of return” for all descendants of Palestinian refugees to “Green Line” Israel as stipulated in UN Resolution 194, itself actually conditional upon the acceptance by all parties of the earlier partition of Jewish and Arab states in Palestine.

The implacable demand for the “right of return” gestures towards the ambivalent attitude of BDS supporters regarding a negotiated two-state solution within roughly Green Line borders. The movement’s spiritual leader, Qatari-born Omar Barghouti, along with Australian supporters such as the journalist Antony Loewenstein, explicitly calls for the establishment of a “secular democratic state” of Palestine. This is the so-called one-state solution, which would see a single, non-Jewish state created between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, ushering in the end of the state of Israel after 66 years in existence. BDS is justly regarded by many as a war against Israel by means other than violence....

.... [I]t singles out Israel for boycott and ignores far worse human rights abuses; it punishes all Israelis for the actions of their state; it educates followers that the “racist”, “colonialist” Jewish state is at the centre of all that is wrong in the world; it pushes Jewish defenders of Israel’s right to exist out of progressive movements; it recycles images of Jews as bloodthirsty oppressors exercising disproportionate influence over politics and the media; and it pushes the idea that people who raise the issue of anti-Semitism are only doing so in order to silence criticism of Israel. It has nothing to say of Palestinian rejectionism, especially of the racist, religious fundamentalist Hamas variety...." [Emphasis added]

See, too, Canadian columnist Robert Fulford, focusing here on the brouhaha over Scarlett Johansson and SodaStream:

"The people who defame Israel and wish to undermine its status in the world are not anti-Semites — or so they will tell you, every chance they get. Their denial of anti-Semitism is essential to their moral position. In their own view they are good progressives, therefore absolutely innocent of racial or religious discrimination. Their propaganda campaign, which they hope eventually will escalate into economic warfare, is intended merely to reshape Israel’s policies.

....My own belief is that the BDS people and their fellow travellers, whatever their background, are anti-Semites. They do all they can to stigmatize the Jewish state and reduce its ability to defend itself. They know that Israel is surrounded by neighbours who will never recognize its existence, much less sign a treaty developed in a “peace process” quarterbacked by Washington. The Palestinians and the Arab states who claim to support them are not hoping for a more generous Israel or a BDS-approved Israel or an Israel willing to hand over the West Bank. They are working for a day when Israel will be gone forever.

In order to satisfy this generation’s anti-Semites, Israel must meet standards that no other country in the world has ever met or ever will. At the United Nations Israel is condemned more often than all other countries combined. [Emphasis added here and below]

It is, of course, an imperfect democracy, like Canada and all other free countries, and its human rights record could certainly be improved. But its treatment of Palestinians has never been even remotely comparable to China’s oppression of Tibetans or Saudi Arabia’s treatment of women, two among many outrageous practices that apparently never trouble the students who direct their anger at Israel...."

Menaced By The Mob: An infidel toddler in torment

This photograph apparently shows the infant child of Christian parents being threatened and tormented by Islamic jihadist rebels in Syria.

The Egyptian-born American Christian scholar Raymond Ibrahim, who regularly chronicles the crimes against his co-religionists in the Muslim world, explains:

'According to Sham Times and other Arabic websites, jihadi social media networks posted the above picture of a child sitting on the ground while surrounded by armed men pointing their rifles at him.  The caption appearing with the picture, purportedly posted by a supporter of the Free Syrian Army, is “Our youngest hostage from among the hostile sects of Kessab.”

Kessab is a predominantly Christian Armenian village in Syria near the Turkish border.  Earlier it was invaded by jihadis, who terrorized, pillaged churches, and prompted some 2000 residents to flee.  Initial reports had stated that about a dozen families remained as hostages....'

See Ibrahim's further commentary on it here which includes the observation, given the known behaviour of such cruel and violent men,

'Surely “teasing” an infidel toddler – a subhuman – with their rifles and sharing it with their sadistic comrades via the Internet for a “laugh” should not be too surprising?'

I came across this photo just after I was sent (thank you, reader P) the link to a report in today's The Independent newspaper which tells us, inter alia, that

'Tony Blair will call on Britain today to back “revolution” against anti-Western interests in the Middle East and beyond to combat the growing threat of radical Islam.

In a significant and controversial intervention, the former Prime Minister will suggest that, as a result of failures in Iraq and Afghanistan, governments in Europe and America have become “curiously reluctant to acknowledge” Islamic extremism.

This unwillingness to confront Islamism risks the 21st century being characterised by “conflict between people of different cultures”, he will warn.

Mr Blair will also call for Europe and America to put aside their differences with Russia and China and “co-operate” to fight what he describes as the “radicalised and politicised view of Islam” that is threatening their collective interests....

[He] is understood to be increasingly concerned by the failure of Britain and other Western countries effectively to tackle what he believes to be the growing threat of radical Islam – that combines politics with religion and opposes pluralistic societies....

While he does not specifically mention military intervention he makes clear that he believes Western “engagement” needs to go beyond the political. ...

The threat of this radical Islam is not abating,” he will say. “This struggle between what we may call the open-minded and the closed-minded is at the heart of whether the 21st century turns in the direction of peaceful co-existence or conflict between people of different cultures.”...'

Many reading that will not be unmindful that it was Blair who during his prime ministership opened the floodgates in Britain to unfettered mass migration from the Third World including that of Islamists.

Yet I should have thought that his present views with regard to the radical Islamist threat around the word represents something of a "Motherhood" statement, and that those, such as our old mate the Vicar of Virginia Water whose co-religionists have the most to lose by the triumph of radical Islam (like the child in the above photo and his fellow Christians in the Middle East, not to mention the feminist brigade) would welcome Blair's remarks.

It seems I'm mistaken, at least as far as our old anti-Zionist mate is concerned (hat tip: reader P again).

Anything to say about the death and destruction meted out to your fellow Christians by the radical Islamists Blair warns against, vicar?

David Singer: "Abbas's Pathetic Bluff & Bluster Should For Once Be Exposed & Rejected By America & Israel"

Here, entitled "Palestine – Abbas Unilaterally Resurrects Palestinian Authority," is the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.

He writes:

'Easter 2014 will be remembered as the time when PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas tried to resurrect the Palestinian Authority (PA) that he himself had declared dead and buried on 3 January 2013.

Adopting US Secretary of State Kerry's terminology – "Poof – that was the day that signalled the end of the Oslo Accords".

The demise of the PA had been announced by John Whitbeck, an international lawyer who served as a legal advisor to the Palestinian team negotiating with Israel, in an article published on 10 January 2013 in Al Jazeera English and also the Huffington Post:

"On January 3 Mahmoud Abbas, acting in his capacities as President of the State of Palestine and Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, signed "Decree No. 1 for the year 2013." While he did so with minimal ceremony or fanfare, and while the change formalized by this decree should surprise no one after the UN General Assembly's overwhelming vote on November 29 to upgrade Palestine's status at the United Nations to "observer state," this change is potentially historic.

By this decree, the Palestinian Authority, created for a five-year interim period pursuant to the Oslo Declaration of Principles signed on the White House lawn in September 1993, has been absorbed and replaced by the State of Palestine, proclaimed in November 1988, recognized diplomatically by 131 of the 193 UN member states and supported in the recent General Assembly vote by an additional 28 states which have not yet formally recognized it diplomatically.

After citing the November 29 General Assembly Resolution, Article 1 of the decree states: "Official documents, seals, signs and letterheads of the Palestinian National Authority official and national institutions shall be amended by replacing the name 'Palestinian National Authority' whenever it appears by the name 'State of Palestine' and by adopting the emblem of the State of Palestine." Concluding Article 4 states: "All competent authorities, each in their respective area, shall implement this Decree starting from its date."

Did none of the thousands of US State Department and Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs minions read Whitbeck's article and realise its significance?

Surely those who did should have been concerned at Whitbeck's further following comments:

"Perhaps due, at least in part, to the low-key manner in which this change has been effected, it has attracted remarkably little attention from the international media or reaction from other governments, even the Israeli and American governments. This is not necessarily disappointing, since passive acceptance is clearly preferable to furious rejection.

The relatively few and brief media reports of the change have tended to characterize it as "symbolic." It could – and should – be much more than that. If the Palestinian leadership plays its cards wisely, it could – and should – represent a turning point toward a better future.

In his correspondence, Yasser Arafat used to list all three of his titles under his signature – President of the State of Palestine, Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization and President of the Palestinian Authority (in that order of precedence). It is both legally and politically noteworthy that, in signing this decree, Mahmoud Abbas has listed only the first two titles.

The Trojan horse called the "Palestinian Authority" in accordance with the Oslo interim agreements and the "Palestinian National Authority" by Palestinians has served its purpose by introducing the institutions of the State of Palestine on the soil of Palestine and has now ceased to exist."

Abbas had dissolved the Palestinian Authority with the stroke of a pen – creating a situation where further negotiations under the Oslo Accords and the Bush Roadmap were nugatory.

America and Israel – at their peril – apparently preferred to negotiate with ghosts and turn a blind eye to this extremely significant development.

Now, 15 months down the track – with negotiations begun in July 2013 now on their last legs – news that Abbas is contemplating dismantling the PA for a second time has brought forth the following response from State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki:

"Of course [the PA disbanding] will have serious consequences. Obviously this is not in the interest of the Palestinian people , and all that has been achieved will be lost.

The US has made tremendous efforts to build Palestinian institutions in the PA, and so has the international community, The move will seriously harm the US-PA relationship, including in terms of financial aid."

Ignoring Abbas's 2013 decree has certainly cost the US dearly – about US $500 million in financial aid reportedly paid to an organization over the last 15 months that had ceased to exist.

Has America ever suffered a more blatant financial scam of such massive proportions?

Suddenly the State Department is now also concerned about "the interest of the Palestinian people" after having connived to allow Abbas to lead them down a negotiating blind alley with no possible light at the end of the tunnel following the PA demise.

Israel also needs to explain its role in perpetuating the fiction of the PA's existence for the last nine months

Kerry's desperate efforts to keep these Mickey Mouse negotiations alive has been exposed by Abbas's last ditch threat to dismantle the non-existent PA.

Kerry needs to answer how any signed agreement could ever be achieved with a party whose existence Abbas can turn on and off like a tap.

Abbas's pathetic bluff and bluster should for once be exposed and rejected by America and Israel.'

Carr, Cox & Kennedy: Aussie pro-Israel politician Danby on the ABC's bias

The ABC is Australia's equivalent of the BBC, though it is state-funded out of the public purse via taxation rather than by means of that odious poll-tax known as the "licence fee" that comfortably sustains its British counterpart.  Like the BBC, the ABC is very much a voice of the liberal-left, and, though probably not as audaciously prejudiced as is the arrogant and self-satisfied Al Beeb, its current affairs programs and panels tend to be in thrust and composition accordingly skewed.


Moreover, as Jewish MP Michael Danby has observed:

“The ABC regularly exhibits its cultural insensitivity of having programs like Q&A on Jewish holy days such as Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur and Passover.”

Nowhere was the ABC's bias and insensitivity more apparent than in the selection of panellists for last night's Q&A (billed as "Lobbyists, Lies & Libertarians"), as described in the following letter of protest from veteran pro-Israel federal MP Michael Danby (correctly anticipating  “the inevitable attack on Israel and the Australian Jewish community” and considering the program as advertised  "a set-up because the panel designed to promote Bob Carr along with overseas guest [violinist Nigel] Kennedy and [Viennese-born feminist] Eva Cox* who is a critic of the mainstream Australian Jewish community”) in an as yet unanswered letter to the ABC's managing, Mark Scott:

Dear Mr Scott,

Thank you for our telephone conversation earlier today. At your suggestion I am copying Peter McEvoy, Executive Producer of QandA to this note restating my concern with the likely content and construct of the panel of next Monday’s QandA program. Clearly there will be a focus on Mr Carr’s book, particularly given the publicity his book attracted this last week. The publicity highlighted his controversial views of the ‘unhealthy influence of the Australian Jewish Community’ on Australian Foreign Policy. A community, of which you know, I am a proud member and advocate.

Mr Carr’s advertised co-panelist Eva Cox has virulently negative views about Israel and the Australian Jewish Community which she has previously expressed on QandA. [compere] Mr [Tony] Jones has hosted Ms Cox on previous QandA programs when Israel has been a topic, in which she has vociferously expressed such views. A third panelist, British violinist, Nigel Kennedy, was censored by the BBC in August 2013 for his ad-hoc attack on Israel as an ‘apartheid’ state during a performance screened by the British network. As it stands, those criticised in Mr Carr’s book, such as myself, Mark Dreyfus, Josh Frydenberg and Mark Leibler will have not any opportunity to respond to the inevitable chorus of criticism of phantom ‘Likudniks.’ Even though our position of a two state solution brought about by an agreement between the Palestinians and Israelis is the position of both Australian Parties representing 90% of Australians. Of course each panelist is entitled to their opinion, however, it would be both equitable and instructive for an element of balance to be introduced by either myself, Dreyfus, Frydenberg or Leibler. [Emphasis added]

I accept that the British panelist Mr O’Neil[l] has at times written regarding the issues of anti-Semitism and BDS, and has expressed views that might introduce some balance on the Middle East. However, he is not cognisant of the domestic issues ventilated by Mr Carr, which are specifically with regard to Australia’s vote at the UN and a severe critique of the Australian Jewish Community, nor would he have any knowledge of the specific electoral pressures that I and many others ascribe as a primary source of Mr Carr’s conduct and writing. Nor, I doubt would [NSW Liberal politician]Ms  [Kerry]Chikarovski.

 .... I believe the views of at least one articulate Australian who represents a different view on the inevitable discussion of the thrust of Carr’s book should be included in the line-up.

Finally, as a suggestion, one of the panelists or Mr Jones might want to raise with Carr why he was so obsessed with this issue when there are far worse situations in the world, such as 300,000 incarcerated in North Korean Concentration Camps, or 140,000 people murdered by their own government in Syria, or indeed Bob Carr’s cruel indifference to the millions of Tibetans living under China’s boot...."

For the entire letter and the full story see J-Wire here

*In 2010 Cox (pictured right, alongside Carr), like Antony Loewenstein and a number of figures marginal to the mainstream Australian Jewish community, signed the following petition:

We are Jews from Australia, who, like Jewish people throughout the world, have an automatic right to Israeli citizenship under Israel’s “law of return.” While this law may seem intended to enable a Jewish homeland, we submit that it is in fact a form of racist privilege that abets the colonial oppression of the Palestinians.
Today there are more than seven million Palestinian refugees around the world. Israel denies their right to return to their homes and land—a right recognized and undisputed by UN Resolution 194, the Geneva Convention, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Meanwhile, we are invited to live on that same land simply because we are Jewish, thereby potentially taking the place of Palestinians who would dearly love to return to their ancestral lands.
We renounce this “right” to “return” offered to us by Israeli law. It is not right that we may “return” to a state that is not ours while Palestinians are excluded and continuously dispossessed.

'We are Jews from Australia, who, like Jewish people throughout the world, have an automatic right to Israeli citizenship under Israel’s “law of return.” While this law may seem intended to enable a Jewish homeland, we submit that it is in fact a form of racist privilege that abets the colonial oppression of the Palestinians.

Today there are more than seven million Palestinian refugees around the world. Israel denies their right to return to their homes and land—a right recognized and undisputed by UN Resolution 194, the Geneva Convention, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Meanwhile, we are invited to live on that same land simply because we are Jewish, thereby potentially taking the place of Palestinians who would dearly love to return to their ancestral lands.

We renounce this “right” to “return” offered to us by Israeli law. It is not right that we may “return” to a state that is not ours while Palestinians are excluded and continuously dispossessed.'

The Q&A program that was the subject of Danby's letter was broadcast last evening.  It included discussion on not one but two questions (a not insubstantial portion of the entire subject matter) of relevance to Danby's fears, as set out on the ABC site:

ISRAEL LOBBY

Greg Weiss asked: Bob Carr, in your previous book “My Reading Life” you praised the Jewish Holocaust survivor Primo Levi. Primo Levi's family along with 6 million Jews were murdered while waiting for the world to speak up on their behalf. None did. That is why the Jewish people have been forced /opted to have their own lobby groups as no one lobbied on their behalf. What is the problem then with a Jewish lobby group? I see no difference between it pushing for its own case any more than a Gay lobby group fighting for Gay rights or the Groceries Lobby arguing for its interests or any other group. Why single out the Jewish lobby group from any other one?

PALESTINE

Jessie Tu asked:Nelson Mandela famously said that our freedom will be incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians. I believe that what is occurring to them is a direct violation of the most fundamental human rights. However, I've noticed that my views are often deemed 'Pro - Palestinian' and retaliated against and labelled 'anti Semitic' by those on the other side. How can a logical dialogue even begin when the belief in the equality of all humans is met with such aggressive defensiveness?

Brendan O'Neill spoke well in Israel's defence, but Kerry Chikarovski proved a cop-out, being by her own admission out of her depth on the issue.  (In fact, besides panellist O'Neill, the only articulate pro-Israel speaker was Greg Weiss, a questioner, who cogently pointed out from the floor that Israel is not an "apartheid state".)

See the program (or, when it becomes available later today, read the transcript) here

Incidentally, Danby has written regarding Carr's book:

'.... Let’s look not at some of the anonymous trolls on Twitter empowered by Bob the book-pedlar but at people willing to put their names to their bigotry, who feel empowered by a man of his high rank indulging in a false and disgraceful critique of the “unhealthy influences’’, which he was ‘‘shining a spotlight on’’, of the “Melbourne-based Israel lobby”.

My ears burned. I was sent messages by Carr’s biggest fans such as ‘‘you are scum’’, ‘‘Jew loving asshole’’ and even alerted that ‘‘we all know what you people are up to … same old nonsense as last 2000 years’’. Carr is not responsible for these or for David Duke, or for the Nazi Stormfront website adulating his exaggerated claims, but their adulation ought give him pause....

None of the Australians stereotyped and caricatured by Carr in his book are the fanatics he pretends they are. [Mark] Leibler is a mate of Noel Pearson. His firm Arnold Bloch Leibler has a legacy of supporting indigenous communities and leaders, and Dadon has taken his career as an international jazz musician to new heights.

Carr, that supposed struggler for justice, offered nothing when I ran an international conference on the 300,000 people incarcerated in concentration camps in North Korea.

He says nothing about the abuse of African Muslims in Darfur or the Turkish Uighu­r of Xinjiang. Where are he and his Twitter-troll supporters as President Bashar al-Assad drops barrel bombs on Syrian cities every day?

Yes, I suppose he perfunctorily dispensed some Australian aid. Excuse me, but I think any of these issues are more pressing and ought to be the subject of public mobilisations, rather than a young, struggling Jewish family making a life in a new apartment on a hill in East Jerusalem....

Can you imagine how I felt, at a meeting with six MPs, when he jumped out of his seat, arms flailing like Mr Bean, indignant that the “Jewish lobby” was stopping him issuing a press release on a Lebanese oil spill?....'

Read more here (or try googling the title...)

We are Jews from Australia, who, like Jewish people throughout the world, have an automatic right to Israeli citizenship under Israel’s “law of return.” While this law may seem intended to enable a Jewish homeland, we submit that it is in fact a form of racist privilege that abets the colonial oppression of the Palestinians.
Today there are more than seven million Palestinian refugees around the world. Israel denies their right to return to their homes and land—a right recognized and undisputed by UN Resolution 194, the Geneva Convention, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Meanwhile, we are invited to live on that same land simply because we are Jewish, thereby potentially taking the place of Palestinians who would dearly love to return to their ancestral lands.
We renounce this “right” to “return” offered to us by Israeli law. It is not right that we may “return” to a state that is not ours while Palestinians are excluded and continuously dispossessed.

We are Jews from Australia, who, like Jewish people throughout the world, have an automatic right to Israeli citizenship under Israel’s “law of return.” While this law may seem intended to enable a Jewish homeland, we submit that it is in fact a form of racist privilege that abets the colonial oppression of the Palestinians.
Today there are more than seven million Palestinian refugees around the world. Israel denies their right to return to their homes and land—a right recognized and undisputed by UN Resolution 194, the Geneva Convention, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Meanwhile, we are invited to live on that same land simply because we are Jewish, thereby potentially taking the place of Palestinians who would dearly love to return to their ancestral lands.
We renounce this “right” to “return” offered to us by Israeli law. It is not right that we may “return” to a state that is not ours while Palestinians are excluded and continuously dispossessed.

"Zionists Are taking Over The Canadian Government"

Earlier this month Israel, having already released numerous very ruthless characters with blood on their hands,  announced that it would not, after all, release the final batch of Palestinian prisoners due to be set at liberty under the terms of a controversial undertaking aimed at kick-starting the peace process.

In consequence, a variety of anti-Israel chants, with Netanyahu being compared to Hitler, have been heard in splendidly pro-Israel prime minister Stephen Harper's Canada over the past few days, from protesters waving the Palestinian flag (not a maple leaf in sight, apparently) and Elias Hazineh (he's the guy who last year told an "A' Quds day" rally in Toronto that Israeli Jews  refusing to leave "Palestine" should be shot) was on hand to enthuse the crowd.

Jonathan Halevi explains:

'The Palestine House marked the “Palestinian Political Prisoners' Day” in series of events, including a demonstration in front of the Israeli consulate in Toronto (April 17, 2014) [video clip here], vigil dedicated to Palestinian political prisoners in front of the Israeli consulate (April 18), panel discussion and a movie screening at United Steelworkers Hall (April 19) and letter writing night at Beit Zatoun (April 20).

The demonstration was organized with coordination with the following organizations Beit Zatoun (a cultural and activism centre in Toronto purporting “to explore issues of social justice and human rights, both locally and internationally”), Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid (CAIA), Canada Palestine Association (CPA), International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN), Independent Jewish Voices (IJV), Not In Our Name (NION), Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (QUAIA), Stop the War Coalition (STWC), United Network for Justice and Peace in Palestine/Israel (UNJPPI), Women in Solidarity with Palestine (WSP)....

 The demonstrators, who gathered (April 17) in front of the Israeli consulate in Toronto, demanded the immediate release of ALL Palestinian prisoners from the Israeli jails. They described them as “political prisoners” and “our heroes” ....

Elias Hazineh, former President of the Palestine House, attended the demonstration. He warned the Canadians of the Zionist menace to Canada by saying loudly the following:

“Zionists are taking over Canada. They are taking over our government. Zionism is racism and they are taking over our government. Zionism is racism. Zionists are taking over our government. Zionists are taking over the Canadian government. Zionists are taking over the Canadian government. The Zionist movement is a racist movement. It is taking over our government. The Zionists are taking over our government. The Zionists are taking over our government. Be careful, wake up Canada, wake up, Zionists are taking over the country.” ....'

 For much more, on both the protesters and some of the "political" prisoners they support (including the mass murderer serving 67 life sentences who first practised his deadly skills by blowing the head off an already-abused donkey) see Jonathan Halevi's graphic post here
 (Hat tip: reader Shirlee)