Lauren Booth Does A Helen Thomas

 A few years ago Tony Blair's embarrassing sister-in-law Lauren Booth, who's a "revert"to Islam and regularly inveighs against the Zionist Entity on Iran's English-language satellite station PressTV, and elsewhere, apparently made the following rather charming comment here in response to rumours that she is the daughter of a Jewish mother:

A couple of days ago Ms Booth made the following tweet about the origin of the Jewish People, a tweet that is reasonably viewed as antisemitic:

 For more information see here

David Singer: "Pope’s Political Power Play Promises Pandemonium ... Papal Bull Has Been Given A New Meaning"

Titled "Palestine – Pope’s Political Power Play Promises Pandemonium", here's the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.

He writes:

The visit of Pope Francis to Amman, Bethlehem and Jerusalem this week proved that His Holiness is just as fallible – and gullible – as a host of other world power brokers like US President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Kerry and the negotiators representing the Quartet – the European Union, the United Nations, Russia and America.

All had plunged into the political mire that constitutes the 130-years-old Arab-Israel conflict believing they could resolve it  – but ultimately discovered it was destined to become their political graveyard.

The Pope’s descent into the political hell-hole that comprises former Palestine was totally unnecessary.

Regrettably the Pope chose to turn what should have been a purely spiritual pilgrimage to the Holy Land into a highly contentious political one. The Pope – in Bethlehem’s Manger Square – addressed the following politically charged words to Mahmoud Abbas  – the unelected and unconstitutional self-styled “President” of the “Palestinian Authority” since 2009 – who had unilaterally disbanded it in January 2013 – thereafter proclaiming himself “President of the State of Palestine” – a State that has no legal basis in international law:

“Mr President, you are known as a man of peace and a peacemaker. Our recent meeting in the Vatican and my presence today in Palestine attest to the good relations existing between the Holy See and the State of Palestine. I trust that these relations can further develop for the good of all."

The Pope’s regrettable statement had clearly breached Clause 11(2) of the 1993 Fundamental Agreement between the Holy See and the State of Israel which provides:

“The Holy See, while maintaining in every case the right to exercise its moral and spiritual teaching-office, deems it opportune to recall that owing to its own character, it is solemnly committed to remaining a stranger to all merely temporal conflicts, which principle applies specifically to disputed territories and unsettled borders.” 

Can you locate the “State of Palestine” in any world atlas? Where are its borders? What is its area, population, capital, currency? Who is its Prime Minister?

Bethlehem is disputed territory – claimed by both Arabs and Jews – and since 1948 has not been under the internationally recognized sovereignty of any legally constituted State.

Bethlehem is located in an area where the borders remain unsettled between adjoining neighbours pending the conclusion of negotiations between Israel and the PLO under the parameters of the Oslo Accords, the 2003 Bush Road Map and the 2007 Annapolis Conference.

It apparently matters not that the Pope can ignore the Fundamental Agreement made by the Holy See with Israel when it suits the Pope to do so.

The Pope has certainly sent a clear signal to Israel that it can no longer rely on any written agreement made with the Holy See.

If Israel can’t trust the Pope – then can Israel trust the PLO or Hamas to honour written agreements?

The Pope’s portrayal of “President” Abbas being “known as a man of peace and a peacemaker” – was uttered by the Pope without blinking an eyelid – and studiously ignored Clause 2.2 of the Fundamental Agreement: 

“The Holy See takes this occasion to reiterate its condemnation of hatred, persecution and all other manifestations of anti-Semitism directed against the Jewish people and individual Jews anywhere, at any time and by anyone.”

Abbas’s hatred of Jews is evidenced by the following remark made by him in Cairo on 28 June 2010:

“I’m willing to agree to a third party that would supervise the agreement, such as NATO forces, but I would not agree to having Jews among the NATO forces, or that there will live among us even a single Israeli on Palestinian land.”

Abbas is the Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization whose Charter declares:

“Claims of historical or religious ties of Jews with Palestine are incompatible with the facts of history and the true conception of what constitutes statehood. Judaism, being a religion, is not an independent nationality. Nor do Jews constitute a single nation with an identity of its own; they are citizens of the states to which they belong.”

Not a murmur or admonishment from the Pope was made against these Abbas manifestations of antisemitism. The Pope preferred to tell the gathered audience he was speaking “in the birthplace of Jesus the King of Peace” – conveniently forgetting to mention that Jesus was born and grew up as a Jew.

The Pope’s unscheduled stop at the security barrier to pray was a major PR coup for the PLO and Israel bashers - offering a unique photo opportunity and fuelling political expectations of future Papal support that will surely encourage Abbas to maintain his rejectionist stance – making resolution of the conflict even harder to achieve.

The Pope’s invitation to Abbas and Israel’s President, Shimon Peres – who also considers Abbas “a true partner for peace” – to join the Pope in prayer at the Vatican in June, will prove to be sublime pantomime.

The politically entrapped Pope will not be praying aloud for Abbas to recognise Israel as the nation State of the Jewish People.

Peres will soon retire and has no political power. Abbas illegally clings to political power but lacks the courage to exercise it to end the conflict.

Forget any breakthrough.

Political pandemonium and the hardening of entrenched negotiating positions are the most likely outcomes that continuing Papal political intrusion into this temporal long-running conflict will yield.

“Papal bull” has been given a new meaning.

"Advance With Your Mighty Army To Jerusalem. You Are Worth Liberating It" (video)

From MemriTV, a bloodcurdling glimpse of followers of the Caliphate-seeking organisation Hizb-ut-Tahrir, appealing to Pakistan to "liberate" Jerusalem from "The Jews ... the most hostile people towards the believers".

And of course it's not just in the Middle East that Hizb-ut-Tahrir seeks to create a Caliphate, but everywhere.  

More Tripe, Vicar? Stephen Sizer plans book on the "influence" of the "Zionist Lobby" in the UK

A recent article noted:

'If you estimated the amount of money a country spends on lobbying the United States based on critical media coverage of that lobbying, you’d probably put Israel at the top of the list. But a new study by the Sunlight Foundation reveals that not only isn’t Israel a big spender, it practically doesn’t even make the list. Of the 84 countries surveyed, Israel ranked 83rd, spending just $1,250 to lobby America in 2013. (The only country that ranked lower was Mali, which spent nothing at all.) By contrast, other key American allies unloaded massive sums to influence the U.S. government. Topping the list is the United Arab Emirates with $14.2 million. It is followed by Germany ($12 million), Canada ($11.2 million), and Saudi Arabia ($11.1 million)....

The survey also exposes the double standards of the discourse surrounding the allegedly all-powerful Israel lobby and its purported “stranglehold” on Congress. Last October, Jack Straw, the former foreign minister of the United Kingdom, claimed that the lobby’s “unlimited funds” enable it to dictate American policy in the Middle East. Similar assertions have been advanced by former President Jimmy Carter, and political scientists Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, as well as many less respectable sources. Indeed, discussion of the Israel lobby’s supposedly malign influence is a staple of countless critiques of the U.S.-Israel relationship. Yet somehow, the massive foreign expenditures of other American allies like Saudi Arabia and Germany to sway U.S. policy – which dwarf the purely domestic spending of pro-Israel groups – rarely face similar scrutiny. Only Israel’s comparably meager efforts are repeatedly stigmatized, delegitimized and endowed with sinister overtones....'

On the other side of the Herring Pond, our old friend the Anglican vicar of Virginia Water is a very busy man in the anti-Israel cause.  Tracts, tweets, and travels are all part of his perpetual crusade against the Jewish State and Christian Zionism.  And now, he plans a new tome.  An unnamed publisher (Quartet Books? The Palestine Soldarity Campaign? The Rouhani Press? Alas, he does not say!) has asked him to train his torch upon the "Zionist Lobby" and as a result he is asking his Facebook followers whether they know of "published sources that elaborate on the influence of the Zionist Lobby in the UK on the media, press, business, banks, universities, politics and Parliament" that can aid him in this task:

Already, he's had many a suggestion.

Richard Silverstein refers him to Asa Winstanley (who blogs at The Electronic Intifada) and to a certain ridiculous British serial troll who infests blogs like mine with foolish comments and operates a scurrilous website in the bowels of cyberspace that insults leading Zionists in the UK even to the point of defamation).

A couple of followers suggest Peter Oborne's shameful Channel 4 documentary "Inside The Zionist Lobby".

Here are some of the other suggestions so far:

Such tripe, eh?

Perhaps it is only a matter of time before the offal served up by that old duffer of an anti-Jewish Zionist conspiracy theorist Alan Hart (ex-BBC, ex-ITN) is added to the vicar's recommended menu.

Not to mention the offal provided by Stuart Littlewood, like Hart a contributor to the antisemitic Redress website.

Swallow tripe to vomit tripe, I suppose one could say.

More tea instead, vicar?

Go on.  Here's a cuppa for you, brewed by Tom Gross, regarding Oborne's documentary referred to above:

'Whereas there is a pro-Israel lobby with some influence in the U.S. (though not the kind of influence ascribed to it by anti-Semites), contrary to what Channel 4 and others think, there is no effective pro-Israel lobby in Britain.

The complete lack of any effective pro-Israel lobby in Britain (as opposed to well organized anti-Israel groups) goes a long way to explaining why some of the coverage of Israel in the British media is among the worst in the world, and sometimes rivals the Iranian and Egyptian media for its sheer nastiness.

It also explains why Britain failed to back Israel ... at the U.N. General Assembly vote on the Goldstone report into Israeli war crimes, while other democracies – including the U.S., Italy, Germany, Canada, Australia, the Netherlands, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Ukraine, Macedonia and the Czech Republic – did vote with Israel.'

For Israel, Salvation Is From The (Third World) Christians?

Remarks the pro-Israel Christian Middle East Watch in the course of an article critical of the itinerary of the Pope's current visit to the Holy Land:

'In the arena of the Israel-Palestinian conflict ... the Holy See has shown a consistent and unbalanced support for the Palestinians, condemning Israel on a number of occasions for its responses to terrorism and violence (not least in the second intifada) without holding the Palestinians to account for their own actions.

While statements from Rome have been encouraging in overall Christian-Jewish relations, at a local (Middle Eastern) level church representatives have shown a wholehearted support for the anti-Israel BDS (Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions) movement. 

The infamous 2009 “Kairos” document issued by Palestinian Christian leaders encourages Western churches to support boycotts against Israel and has spawned several national supportive “Kairos” organisations around the world. This unbalanced and blatantly anti-Israel document was signed by the heads of all the branches of Catholicism in the region. 

The Roman Catholic Church in the Holy Land has fully imbibed the “occupation rhetoric” of the PLO and PA, partly in the mistaken belief that this support will somehow inoculate Catholic Christians against persecution by Muslims. Far from this being the case, there are many and repeated examples of brutal persecution of Christians within the PA-controlled areas.

All the traditional Christian denominations prefer to ignore both what is happening to their own people at the hands of Muslims and the inconvenient fact that Jewish Israel is the only Middle Eastern state where Christians can freely exercise their religious beliefs and practices....'

Read the entire article here

The New York Times reports that

'A conflict largely defined by dueling narratives became a battle of competing imagery during Pope Francis’ sojourn through the Holy Land, with Palestinians and Israelis both seizing on the pontiff’s strong symbolic gestures to promote their perspectives....

“He made some gestures that feel a little bit uncomfortable for us, but he also went out of his way to make gestures to comfort us,” said Rabbi Gordis, senior vice president of Jerusalem’s Shalem College.

“It depends on which set of lenses one wants to bring to this,” he added. “If one wants to do a kind of tit for tat, photo op for photo op, then there are going to be Israelis that feel we got the short end of the stick. If you zoom out, what it feels like is an attempt to inspire.” ...'

Certainly, as the above tweet reminds us, Pope Francis made an extraordinary symbolic gesture in affirmation of the legitimacy of Zionism by visiting (and placing a wreath on) Theodor Herzl's grave on Mount Herzl, where the remains of the founder of modern Zionism have lain since 1949, when, the year following the establishment of the State of Israel and 45 years after his death and burial in Vienna.

For pontiffs have visited Israel before, gone to the western Wall and to Yad Vashem, but never to Herzl's resting place.

Melanie Phillips, writing in the Jerusalem Post,  wondered

"whether the pope will speak out clearly against this Christian victimization when he meets representatives of Islam on his visit to what he calls the Holy Land. He reportedly wants to heal the fissure between Jews and Palestinians. Very nice; but surely his priority should be stopping the slaughter of his own flock."

She proceeded to remind us that

'.... Across the developing world, including countries where Christians are being persecuted, the churches are experiencing phenomenal growth. If trends persist, Europe’s Christians will be overtaken by those in Africa, Latin America and Asia, most of the growth driven by the astounding expansion of Pentecostal, Charismatic and other evangelical churches....One reason for such growth is that people who have suffered from repressive regimes are turning to a religion which (thanks to its Jewish roots) underpins freedom and human rights. The more barbaric Islamic regimes become, the more people turn to Christianity....

 The striking feature of these new Christians is that, because they are evangelicals and thus take very seriously what is written in the Bible, they devoutly support Israel.

.... Westerners may feel uncomfortable about these new churches since they emphasize healing, prophecy, visions, ecstatic utterances and the supernatural. But they are amongst Israel’s best friends in the world. And their amazing growth has major global implications.

In the West, Christianity is in decline. Even in the US where the churches are still relatively strong, the culture war is being lost to the forces of galloping secularism. With the Islamic world exploiting this civilizational vacuum, Britain and Europe are steadily being Islamized. At same time, the developing world is becoming Christianized. The face of Christianity is thus changing color, from white to (its original) brown and black.

This growth is a huge opportunity for Israel because these new Christians are free from the poisonous hostility towards it of the Western churches. Encouragingly, Israel has come to view these new allies as a strategic asset, but it needs to invest in them much more, helping improve their economies and living standards, to cement this friendship and use it to transform Israel’s leverage at the UN.

It’s not true that time is running out for Israel. Time is running out for the West. It’s not true that Israel is friendless.

It has many friends. Just different ones. And it has to nurture them more carefully....'

"Salvation is from the Jews," observes a celebrated phrase in one of the Christian gospels.

For Israel, salvation (so to speak) therefore seems set to come from the Christians, particularly Christians of the Third World.

See her article, with its encouraging statistics, here

As she says,

'In Iran, of all places, the churches are experiencing the fastest expansion in the world with estimated annual growth rates of more than 20 percent. According to some sources, the number of Iranian evangelicals has grown from a few hundred in 1979 to more than five million today.

 It’s even happening in China. Mao expelled Christian missionaries and predicted that “colonialist” Christianity would disappear. Yet from a total of 900,000 then, Chinese Christians have now grown to at least 80 million.

 One reason for such growth is that people who have suffered from repressive regimes are turning to a religion which (thanks to its Jewish roots) underpins freedom and human rights. The more barbaric Islamic regimes become, the more people turn to Christianity. Just a few years ago Algeria, for example, had around 1,500 Christians; under its repressive Islamist government, their numbers have swelled to nearly 200,000.'

But Israel and its friends mustn't be complacent.  For the anti-Zionist Christians in the West (including that tireless crusader against Israel Stephen Sizer, no stranger to either Iran or Algeria and who recently had one of his anti-Zionist works translated into Chinese) have obviously also taken note of  these figures.  Their pernicious influence must be countered.

For as Sizer wrote last November here:

"I am in Algeria this week at the invitation of the Minister for Religious Affairs and Wakf, Bouabdallah Ghlamallah, and the Right Revd Dr Mouneer Anis, the Anglican  Bishop of Egypt and North Africa. I have been giving a series of lectures on the Middle East conflict from a Christian perspective in universities and Islamic institutes, made some TV and radio programmes, given several newspaper interviews, and preached in Holy Trinity Church, Algiers, the only Anglican church in Algeria....

One of the issues I am addressing is the influence of Christian Zionism in perpetuating the Middle East conflict,  which tries to suggest Zionism is some how compatible with Christianity and lends it a veneer of Biblical credibility it does not warrant. The movement has been repudiated unequivocally by the heads of the indigenous Middle East churches in the Jerusalem Declaration on Christian Zionism....

The Algerian Religious Affairs Ministry are keen to arrange a follow-up lecture tour of other universities in 2014.'

David Singer On A Tantalising Prospect For Negotiations

In this, his latest article, Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer ponders the question "Palestine – Imminent Breakthrough Or Lost Opportunity?"

He writes:

The publication of "A Palestinian State – Not A Priority" in the Palestine Telegraph on May 23 offers the tantalising prospect of a possible breakthrough in resolving the Arab-Jewish conflict.

Three reasons support such optimism:

First – the Palestine Telegraph is published in Gaza, its web site declaring:

"The PT is a non-profit project that depends totally on donations from people of good will committed to freedom of speech for all people. Our success will come from the commitment of our volunteer reporters and the interest of people of good will seeking true change in our world; one where all people are respected and indeed have equal human rights...

...The Palestine Telegraph/PT is the first Electronic Newspaper based in the Gaza Strip, Palestine, staffed by Palestinians and international volunteers; professional journalists and members of the New Fourth Estate – citizen journalists who do not take assignments from editors or paychecks from corporate controlled media."

Secondly – the article's editor, Yoram Ettinger, is a distinguished Israeli whose CV includes:

"(Since 1993) Consultant to Israel’s Cabinet Members, to Israeli legislators and to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on US-Israel bilateral projects, US policy and Mideast politics.

Executive Director of "Second Thought – A U.S. Israel Initiative," dedicated to generate out-of-the-box thinking on US-Israel relations, Middle East politics, the Palestinian issue, Jewish-Arab demographics, Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria."

Thirdly – Ettinger's article contains the following powerful message for Gaza's readers to digest – indeed for all who seek to end this conflict that has raged unresolved for the last 130 years:

 'The Palestinian issue has benefited from the Arab/Muslim talk, but – due to the Palestinian record of intra-Arab subversion – has never been supported by the Arab/Muslim walk. Arab/Muslim policy makers have never considered the Palestinian issue a strategic interest, but rather a tactical instrument to advance intra-Arab or Muslim interests and to annihilate the Jewish state.

Irrespective of this, Palestine has been a geographic, not a national, concept, as evidenced by the lack of distinct, cohesive national character of its Arab inhabitants. This lack of cohesion has been intensified by the violent internal fragmentation along various lines: cultural (such as Bedouin vs. rural vs. urban sectors), geographic (e.g. mountain vs. coastal Arabs, southern vs. northern, Hebron vs. Bethlehem, Nablus vs. Ramallah, Nablus vs. Hebron), ethnic, ideological, political (pro- or anti-Jordan), historical and tribal identity. Such turbulent fragmentation was fueled by the multitude of Arab or Muslim migration waves from Bosnia, Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Jordan, the Arabian Peninsula, Syria and Lebanon.

The establishment of a Palestinian state was not on the agenda of the non-Arab Muslim Ottoman Empire, which ruled the area from 1517 through 1917. The Ottomans linked the area, defined by most Arabs as a region within Southern Syria or the Levant, to the Damascus and Beirut provinces.

The British Empire, which dominated the Middle East from 1917 until the end of World War II, did not contemplate a Palestinian Arab state, while establishing a series of Arab countries throughout the Middle East. Moreover, the 1917 Balfour Declaration dedicated Palestine, including Jordan, to the Jewish homeland. The 1920 San Remo Resolution, formulated by the principal Allied Powers, formalized the Balfour Declaration-based British Mandate for Palestine, which was ratified on Aug. 12, 1922, by the League of Nations, eventually transferring 77 percent of Palestine (Jordan) to the Arabs. The U.S. House and Senate approved it unanimously on June 30, 1922. In 1945, the Mandate for Palestine was integrated into the U.N. Charter via Article 80, which precludes alterations, and is still legally binding.

Jordan and Egypt occupied Judea and Samaria and Gaza from 1949 through 1967, but did not ponder the establishment of a Palestinian state; nor did the Arab League.

According to Dr. Yuval Arnon-Ohanna of Ariel University, who headed the Palestinian Desk at the Mossad Research Division, the secretary-general of the Arab League, Azzam Pasha, stated in September 1947 that the core problem was not a Palestinian state or Jewish expansionism. The only priority was the duty to uproot the Jewish presence from Palestine, which was defined by Muslims as “Waqf” – an area divinely endowed to Islam and not to the “infidel.” ....'

Such an article appearing in a Gaza electronic newspaper written by so eminent an Israeli with such close links to the Israeli Government would have been unthinkable just one month ago.

Did the publication of this article somehow accidentally slip through the Hamas Government censor's scrutiny or does it signify the willingness of Hamas to engage in negotiations whose agenda for the first time would be based on the facts presented so succinctly by Ettinger?

Until now the PLO has dismissed the 1917 Balfour Declaration, the 1922 Mandate for Palestine and everything that has happened since then as being null and void.

However, three weeks ago Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh told Middle East Monitor:

"Both nations, Jordan and Palestine, share the same history and present"

Jordan and Palestine's joint modern history commenced with the Balfour Declaration and Mandate for Palestine – and subsequently unfolded as accurately recounted in Ettinger's article.

As negotiations to effect a reconciliation between Hamas and the PLO reportedly gain momentum, the beginnings of a commonly-agreed Jewish and Arab narrative based on fact – not fiction – could hopefully become the basis for resuming future negotiations.

Imminent breakthrough or yet another lost opportunity?

Edgar Maps The Mischief

Photo: Richard Millett

I've referred to Edgar Davidson's British-based blog several times in the past.  Cerebral, original, and sometimes satirical, he's one of my favourite pro-Israel bloggers.  His latest post is a valuable contribution to that small but vital body of internet posts that refute the mendacious, mischievous set of four map that, claiming to show Zionist land thefts of Arab land, constitutes a seemingly ubiquitous graphic corollary to the allegation of a "disappearing Palestine".

The set of maps is, it appears, an essential prop in the equipment of all anti-Israel propagandists, featuring as it does on posters pinned up during Israel-bashing meetings, intended for the sides of buses, given pride of place at Israel-bashing demonstrations (see, for instance, here), and comprising sticky posts on websites such as this one.

Notes Mr Davidson, in what should be required reading for every naive individual snared or likely to be snared by propagandistic anti-Israel malice, but of course won't be:

These maps are based on the completely false premise that, prior to 1947 there was an Arab state of Palestine. In fact the Palestine that was promised to the Jews as part of the Balfour declaration was the British mandate territory that includes what later become the state of Jordan (my map above top left). There was not – and never has been
– an Arab state of Palestine even though, between 1948 and 1967 there was no 'occupied territories' of the West Bank or Gaza since these areas were then under the full control of Jordan and Egypt respectively. The Palestinian Arabs living there during that period never called for an independent state of their own.

Only the Jews of Palestine considered themselves Palestinian before 1948. The Arabs
– most of whom had come to Palestine from Egypt and Syria because of the economic opportunities opened up by the Jews – considered themselves to be Syrian.

 Despite the fact that 80% of mandate Palestine (not shown on the maps that lie) had already been granted to the Arabs exclusively to become the new state of Jordan, the Jews of Palestine accepted the UN partition plan of 1947. The surrounding Arab states did not accept it and launched a war of annihilation against the Jews (during and after which some 1 million Jews from Arab countries were forced to leave
– most of them came to Israel).

The result of the war that was intended to murder every single Jew in Palestine was that the invading Arab armies were defeated and the Jews controlled slightly more territory overall than was part of the 1947 plan; however, they also lost some territory such as the Jewish quarter of East Jerusalem (including Judaism's holiest sites such as the Wailing Wall) and Gush Etzion that even the 1947 plan had not considered to be under Arab control.

The UN accepted the 1949 armistice line as defining the borders of Israel, while calling for East Jerusalem (now under Jordanian occupation) to be 'internationalised'.

The Arab states refused to recognise the State of Israel and have continued to this day to try to destroy it. The Jordanians who occupied East Jerusalem in 1948 expelled every Jew and destroyed every synagogue in the old city. Not a single Jew was allowed to enter Judaism's holiest sites until 1967 when, after the Egyptians, Jordanians and Syrians launched another attempted war of annihilation, Israel regained control over the old city and other areas.

Israel offered to withdraw from all the newly gained territories in return for peace but the offer was rejected by the Arab countries. With the exception of Jewish East Jerusalem Israel has essentially made the same offer over and again ever since but it has always been rejected. Despite this, Israel has returned the whole of Gaza and most of the West Bank to Palestinian control. But the Arabs continue to demand the destruction of all of Israel.

It is also important to show Israel in context with its Muslim neighbours ...

Mr Davidson's synopsis is an excellent model upon which proponents of the Israeli cause can base their responses to those who trot out those offending maps.

But that written refutation is not all.  For he has done yeoman service to the pro-Israel cause in providing a comprehensive set of rival maps, eight in all, which give an accurate overview of what the situation truly was and is.

See (and bookmark!) Edgar Davidson's post here