Shan't Learn, Can't Learn: The BBC's Jon Donnison

Yesterday: another biased Donnison tweet; more in similar vein today

He really is a piece of work, the BBC's Jon Donnison.

One of the most perceptibly and persistently biased of all the BBC's Middle East correspondents, he has countless times been shown up for the egregiously prejudiced and under-informed reporter that he is by the incisive and knowledgeable Hadar Sela of BBC Watch.

But instead of taking Ms Sela's well-founded criticisms to heart and attempting to rectify his prejudiced reportage so that it reflects the objective approach incumbent upon him and his colleagues by the BBC Charter, he has chosen not to learn from his mistakes and instead has taken to making childish jibes about his tenacious Israeli critic that says far more about him than about her:

Indeed, Al Beeb's former Gaza correspondent, who was sent back there from Sydney to cover Operation Protective Edge, seems never to have quite come to terms with his new billet here in Australia.

Among his numerous tweets (some of them of puerile schoolboy standard that not only let him down, but also, I should have thought, the BBC) are many regarding Gaza  and Israel; no prizes for guessing the comparative twists.  Indeed, a sticky post on his Twitter page big-notes the photos he took when last there; you can guess their thrust.

Too many of his reports from and comments about Australia are flippant and shallow.

Yesterday he tweeted this, which I suspect reveals as much about Donnison's attitude as the Somali man's:

Donnison seems to have made little effort to delve deeply into Australia's history and politics, preferring, it would appear, to rely on gleanings from left-wing sources including leftists with Twitter accounts.

His latest piece is a typically superficial and partisan one about Australia's "stop the boats" policy, by which illegal mainly economic migrants wanting to jump the established immigration queue fall victim to international people traffickers, and which in typical leftist style he interprets as the unconscionable response of a heartless government backed by racist people.  (I wonder whether he realises that the long defunct "White Australia Policy" to which he refers in the article originated less in racism than in the fear that uncurbed migration from South-East Asia was inexorably driving down workingmen's wages.) And, true to form, he manages to make Gaza and the Gazans a feature of the piece.

Twitter, indeed, appears to encourage lazy journalism, and lazy journalism is what many of Donnison's critics consider a failing of his: witness, for instance, this.

It seems a given that BBC staff scan and cite the Guardian and Ha'aretz for news of Israel, to the virtual exclusion of centrist and (perish the thought!) rightwing media (except to disdain or mock the latter's content).  Preferring leftist sources, which in Australia's case means the Fairfax Press and not Murdoch 's News Corp is, evidently in almost every Beeboid's DNA.

Donnison's recent dismissive tweet about the article in Ha'aretz on antisemitism in Australia by former Australian Jewish News editor Dan Goldberg  which originally appeared in the latter paper is a probable example of Donnison's mindset. 

Goldberg had opened the article thus

"Australia is not afflicted by the same degree of anti-Semitism reportedly sweeping Europe, but there is a “palpable level of concern” among Jews here following a spike in anti-Semitic incidents since the Gaza war broke out seven weeks ago, some Australian academics warn...."

and it took care not to accentuate the problem.

It did, though, observe, inter alia:

'There have also been several physical assaults on Jews here, but the torrent of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic abuse has come from the sewers of social media.

 “There has been a seismic shift,” said Prof. Mark Baker, director of the Jewish center at Melbourne’s Monash University. “It’s as though the images that we once viewed on television have popped out of the computer screen and landed in our bedrooms.

“People feel as though they are living inside the experience of ISIS beheadings, anti-Israel demonstrations and the Gaza Israel war,” he told Haaretz.

“Everyone is talking about this incessantly, fearing that the world is no longer recognizable, and living in fear of an impending catastrophe. The community is in a tailspin and looking for answers.”

Prof. Danny Ben-Moshe, another Melbourne-based academic who analyzes anti-Semitism, agreed there had been a shift within Australian Jewry but stopped short of describing it as “seismic.”'

 “The collective well-being of Australian Jewry has been adversely affected,” Ben-Moshe told Haaretz. “Jews are neither as free nor as safe as they were prior to this war.” ....'

And it concluded:

'Zeddy Lawrence, the editor of the Australian Jewish News, agreed there was a “palpable sense of concern” within the Jewish community, but did not go as far to suggest the community is in a tailspin.

“There have only been a few isolated anti-Semitic incidents,” he said. “But seeing what has happened in Europe obviously heightens fears of a backlash against the community here.”

In the wake of the incident on Jewish pupils on a school bus in Sydney, Dr. Dvir Abramovich, chairman of the B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation Commission, wrote earlier this month: “There are alarming developments and chilling signs that are making the Jewish community here less comfortable, less confident and very worried that the flames of anti-Semitism are burning more furiously at home.” '

 I suspect the mention of the media, which invoked memories of the disgraceful Mike Carlton article in the Fairfax Press and its accompanying odious cartoon (above, right) prompted Donnison's dismissive attitude, because it wouldn't do for a Beeboid to concede antisemitism on the part of fellow journalistic leftists indulging in a spot of Israel-bashing, now, would it?

Chuck the chutzpah, Jonno!

Indeed, I seem to recall that Carlton or someone of his ilk gleefully retweeted this example (right) of what passes for Donnisonian wisdom.


And  I've a hunch that a piece by a Muslim editor on his community's concern about increasing "Islamophobia" in Australia would not have been so cavalierly treated.

That's no alibi for you, Jonno

Still, knowing how fond Donnison and his fellow lefties are of the Fairfax Press, I trust they will tweet the link to this article that appears in today's Sydney Morning Herald, by an Israeli living in Australia, Dana Amir:

'....Two weeks ago in this paper, an anonymous Israeli declared shame in her citizenship. I'm proud that she has the right to do this, and can do so safely, both here and in Israel. However, her anonymity was insulting. Australia and Israel is not Gaza or Nazi Germany. Israelis and Australian Jews can, and do, criticise Israel.

Although I'm sad that it has been forced to do so, I'm really proud that Israel has invested billions of dollars on bomb shelters and air-raid sirens and radars to detect incoming rockets and missiles to shoot down those rockets, all in the name of protecting its people.

I'm proud that I could do my small part in protecting other Israelis by serving in the army. The army consists of people just like you and me; people who would prefer to start their adult life  earlier, but understand the importance of defending their country. That said, I hated the idea of fighting Palestinians.

For, whether we like it or not – or they like it or not – Israelis and Palestinians share a homeland. We could fight each other for another few generations, or we could divide the land so both sides have a state. I'm proud that successive Israeli governments, buoyed by majority opinion, have been willing to do just that. We have engaged in peace talks, we have made offers. I  know there are Palestinians who also want to stop fighting. I don't know how many, because their media remain full of calls for Israel's destruction, many of their politicians describe Jews as sub-human and their leaders keep turning down Israeli peace offers.

But I know peaceful Palestinians exist, and exist in significant numbers....

What I also know is that Hamas hates me – not because I'm an Israeli, but because I'm a Jew. I know  that Hamas sees itself as being in an inter-generational war with my people. That is why it launches rockets and digs tunnels to provoke fighting with Israel. Not because it thinks it will win, but because it thinks that, after another 10, hundred, thousand such rounds of conflict, the Jews will find somewhere else to live.

Well, we won't. And while I'm proud that the Israeli army does what it must to protect Israelis, it breaks my heart when innocent Palestinians die. I believe that their deaths are the result of Hamas's unbelievably cynical tactics, and I'm proud of the lengths to which Israel goes to prevent Palestinian casualties...."

Read Dana Amir's entire article here

The D[h]im & The Dutiful: "Tragic" says Marvellous Melanie

Recently, in this land Down Under, the Uniting Church (which, incidentally, is not renowned for love and affection towards Israel) held an interfaith meeting on the illustrated theme, coined in response to the "We'll fight radical Islam for 100 years, says ex-Army lead Peter Leahy" headline that which appeared in The Australian on 9 August.

That headline appeared above this report, in which Professor Leahy, a retired lieutenant-general who is director of Canberra University’s National Security Institute and part of the Abbott government’s team carrying out a comprehensive review of Australia's defence,  maintained:

"Australia is involved in the early stages of a war which is likely to last for the rest of the century. We must be ready to protect ourselves and, where necessary, act pre-emptively to neutralise the evident threat. Get ready for a long war....

They [the government] should advance a narrative that explains that radical Islam­ism and the terrorism it breeds at home and abroad will remain a significant threat for the long term, it will require considerable effort, the expenditure of blood and treasure and it will, of necessity, restrict our rights and liberties"....

He said radical Islamists intent on a new world order were already a threat to the survival of nations in the Middle East and Africa.

If the declared caliphate in Syria and Iraq survived, bases would be established there for attacks on the West and that would embolden “home grown” radicals to attempt attacks in Australia. Military action would be needed to eliminate the threat.

Radicals saw the West as “the far enemy” and they were undoubtedly planning more attacks in Australia. Senior intelligence believes the view that the threat posed by radical Islam would pass was “optimistic”....'

All pretty sensible stuff, we may think, particularly in view of the number of Islamic fighters from Australia known to be fighting abroad, including the father of the seven-year-old pictured recently holding a severed head.

But smacking of "media vilification" in the minds of the above-mentioned conference (at which a rabbi, the not widely known Zalman Kastel of Sydney was present) and its supporters, apparently.

For they issued the the following statement, all motherhood and apple pie and good up to a point, though arguably a reckless over-generalisation, which some "as-a-Jews" as well as some of the more naive (or indifferent to Israel, rationality, and to women's rights) among the Jewish community have hastened to append their names:

'As people committed to building a healthy, cohesive and diverse communities in Australia, we have observed with dismay and empathy the way our Muslim friends have been affected by the language and tone of recent political statements and media coverage. We agree with the concerns of Muslim community leaders that the language and policies of our leaders should not marginalise or vilify people of Muslim faith, and that rhetoric used in relation to Australian security and conflicts around the world should not cause further division in our society, or make anyone feel alienated from the nation they call home.

We believe people of Muslim faith are being unfairly smeared in the eyes of the Australian public by both subtle and overt links to violent extremism in political and media discourse.

This month in Sydney; Herald-Sun photo

We know and understand the deep concern and hurt this is causing to our Muslim friends and the risks this kind of generalisation has for social harmony and cohesion.

The violence and values of extremists like ISIS are not representative of the vast majority of Muslim people in Australia, who are characterised better by their commitment to peace, community and mutual respect.

We stand in solidarity with all people who are suffering the results of war, violence and terror around the world, recognising the dignity of all people and their right to enjoy freedom from persecution and oppression.

We celebrate the diversity of the Australian community and recognise the valuable contribution of people of Muslim faith to our culture and community.

We know that vilification and alienation are not the way to peace or social harmony, but that authentic relationships, solidarity, listening, learning and mutual respect go along way to building the kind of community we’d like to live in.'

And now, worse, far worse, we read in the UK Jewish Chronicle, that the d[h]imwitted British Board of Deputies has dutifully undertaken to make common cause with the Muslim Council of Britain:

'Muslim and Jewish leaders have united in calling for stronger collaboration between their communities in the wake of the Gaza conflict.

In an unprecedented joint statement, the Board of Deputies and the Muslim Council of Britain condemned civilian deaths as tragic and called for efforts to avoid them.

They also condemned any expression of antisemitism, Islamophobia and racism generally, calling on both communities to “redouble efforts to work together and get to know one another”.

But the statement was not without controversy, with both sides unable to agree the exact meaning behind one key line.

The line reads: “The targeting of civilians is completely unacceptable and against our religious traditions.” ....'  (See more here)

Rightly comments the great and incomparable Melanie Phillips, who puts what passes for the Anglo-Jewish leadership to shame:

'It is hard to exaggerate the stupidity of the UK Jewish Board of Deputies in what it has just done. It has signed a joint statement with the Muslim Council of Britain condemning antisemitism and Islamophobia and urging that the Middle East conflict should not prevent good community relations in Britain. Apart from the false equivalence between antisemitism and Islamophobia, which equates a metaphysical global derangement – the cause of centuries of pogroms and genocide against the Jews – with a spurious thought-crime invented to silence legitimate criticism of Islam, these were unexceptionable pieties.

However, the statement also contains this passage:

"The death of every civilian is a tragedy, and every effort should be taken to minimise such losses. The targeting of civilians is completely unacceptable and against our religious traditions."

Daily Mail, 25 March 2009

The MCB is an umbrella organisation, a number of whose member groups are aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood and support Hamas. The Board of Deputies may have assumed the second sentence above could only refer to Hamas, since the IDF does not target civilians and goes to great lengths to avoid hurting them wherever possible. But there is no way the MCB would ever suggest that Israel behaves honourably while Hamas does not. It should therefore have been blindingly obvious that the MCB would do what it has immediately done – claim that the Board had agreed with it that both Israel and Hamas had targeted civilians. The Board has thus now enabled the MCB to claim that the UK's Jewish community leadership has condemned Israel for targeting civilians.

Unbelievable. But that's not the full extent of it. The Board seems to be proud that this joint statement is an "unprecedented" achievement. But just look at its new friend.

MCB leaders have in the past strongly supported Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, the spiritual leader of Hamas who supports suicide bombings against Israelis (and previously, British forces in Iraq) and who has also asserted that the Torah permits Jews to spill the blood of others and seize their money and land.

The MCB boycotted Holocaust Memorial Day, for which it was shunned by the British government until it ended its boycott. In 2009, its then deputy secretary general, Daud Abdullah, signed the Istanbul Declaration which threatened violence against Israel supporters and British troops.

In 2005, it offered its condolences to the family of the leading Hamas terrorist Abdul Aziz al Rantissi after he was killed by the Israelis. Its former Secretary-General, Sir Iqbal Sacranie, branded Israel a "Nazi" state, accused it of "murderous leadership", "Zionist brutality" and "the ethnic cleansing of Palestine", and compared Hamas suicide bombers to Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi. Also that year, the BBC TV Panorama programme exposed the influence on the MCB of the Islamist thinker Sayed Maududi, who preached the need for jihad to bring abut the "universal revolution" of Islamic state rule.

In short, it is beyond astounding that the Board of Deputies should have had anything to do with the MCB at all. Its action has also dealt a blow to all who are struggling to deal with Islamic extremism in the UK. For at a stroke the MCB, which in any sane universe should be shunned as a threat not just to Jews but to Britain, has been awarded a kite-mark of respectability and decency by – of all people – the Jews.

The Board of Deputies is not fit for purpose. It has shown that it does not have a clue about the true nature of the threat posed to Jews and to Britain by Islamic extremism. Britain's Jewish community is leaderless at a time when strong, brave and wise leadership has never been more urgently and desperately needed. Tragic.'

As for the often-heard analogy between antisemitism and "Islamophobia", and more specifically that in Europe Muslims are "the new Jews", James Kirchick has a rather splendid refutation here

David Singer: The Key to Peace Lies in the Past

Entitled "Palestine – Unearthing Past Remains Key To Resolving Future", this is the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.

He writes:

The cease fire agreement ending hostilities in the Fifty Day War between Israel and Hamas marks yet another milestone attesting to the failure of Jews and Arabs peacefully to resolve their claims to sovereignty and self-determination in the territory once called “Palestine”.

Amazingly, the continuing inability of the parties  – and the international community – to reach consensus on identifying when this long running conflict actually commenced, ensures it will continue to remain unresolved.

Emeritus Professor Richard Falk – formerly United Nations Special Rapporteur on Palestinian Human Rights in the West Bank – still claims in his latest article that the conflict started in 1947.

“Israel was born in 1948. Resolution 181 of the United Nations General Assembly [dated 29 November 1947 – Ed] is widely regarded as the most convincing legal basis for founding the State of Israel.”

Falk gave the following reasons for his viewpoint on 1 August 2012:

“I regard the Balfour Declaration and the mandatory system as classic colonial moves that have lost whatever legitimacy that they possessed at the time of their utterance, and prefer to view the competing claims to land and rights on the basis either of the 1948 partition proposal or the 1967 boundaries, although if there was diplomatic parity, I would respect whatever accommodation the parties reached, but without such parity, it seems necessary to invoke the allocation of rights as per settled international law.”

Falk’s opinion mirrors Article 20 of the Palestine Liberation Organization Charter:

“The Balfour Declaration [1917], the Mandate for Palestine [1922], and everything that has been based upon them, are deemed null and void.”

Falk’s opinion is not shared by Matti Friedman – who in his latest article identifies the starting date as being much earlier than 1947:

“The Israel story is framed in the same terms that have been in use since the early 1990s—the quest for a “two-state solution.” It is accepted that the conflict is “Israeli-Palestinian,” meaning that it is a conflict taking place on land that Israel controls—0.2 percent of the Arab world—in which Jews are a majority and Arabs a minority. The conflict is more accurately described as “Israel-Arab,” or “Jewish-Arab”—that is, a conflict between the 6 million Jews of Israel and 300 million Arabs in surrounding countries. (Perhaps “Israel-Muslim” would be more accurate, to take into account the enmity of non-Arab states like Iran and Turkey, and, more broadly, 1 billion Muslims worldwide.) This is the conflict that has been playing out in different forms for a century, before Israel existed, before Israel captured the Palestinian territories of Gaza and the West Bank, and before the term “Palestinian” was in use.

The “Israeli-Palestinian” framing allows the Jews, a tiny minority in the Middle East, to be depicted as the stronger party. It also includes the implicit assumption that if the Palestinian problem is somehow solved the conflict will be over, though no informed person today believes this to be true. This definition also allows the Israeli settlement project, which I believe is a serious moral and strategic error on Israel’s part, to be described not as what it is—one more destructive symptom of the conflict—but rather as its cause.”

Adopting Friedman’s viewpoint over Falk’s, one can confidently nominate the 1920 San Remo Conference as the legal basis for founding the State of Israel – when England, France, Italy, and Japan agreed to divide the areas of the 400 years old Ottoman Empire conquered by them in World War 1 into three mandates: Mesopotamia (now Iraq), Syria/Lebanon and Palestine.

This carve-up was intended to see Arab self-determination eventually achieved in 99.99 per cent of the conquered Ottoman territory and Jewish self-determination in the remaining 0.01 per cent.

These proposals were unanimously endorsed by all 51 member States of the League of Nations in 1922.

But they proved to be temporary only in relation to Palestine – because three months later the provisions of Article 25 of the Mandate for Palestine enabled Great Britain to restrict the reconstitution of the Jewish National Home to within 23 per cent of the tiny area of land originally set aside to achieve that objective at San Remo – with the remaining 77 per cent of Mandatory Palestine eventually becoming an independent Palestinian Arab state in 1946 – that is today called Jordan.

The period 1920-1947 without doubt covers a host of critically important legal and historical signposts that cannot be forgotten or buried.

Whilst the two-state solution ultimately created between 1946-1948 as a result of the San Remo Conference is ignored  – attempts to resolve sovereignty in today’s highly volatile West Bank and Gaza – are destined to certain failure and renewed conflict.

The two-state solution posited by the Oslo Accords and the Bush Roadmap creating a 22nd independent sovereign Arab State in the West Bank and Gaza between Jordan and Israel for the first time ever in recorded history has failed to materialize – despite twenty years of intensive political and diplomatic efforts by the international community.

The PLO (founded in 1964) and Hamas (founded in 1987) both seek to unravel the decisions made at San Remo in 1920.

They need to be replaced as Israel’s Arab negotiating partners by the two successor States to the Mandate for Palestine – Jordan and Israel – and possibly Egypt – to determine and allocate sovereignty of the West Bank and Gaza between their respective States.

Unearthing the past still remains the key to peacefully resolving the future.

"A Script Written By Hamas": Media Manipulation and Mendacity (includes video)

The BBC's Donnison showing his bias and ignorance yet again

By Professor  Phyllis Chesler, inter alia, here;

'Monday night, on the upper east side of New York City, a gang of anti-Semitic "thugs" attacked a peaceful but visibly Jewish man – he was wearing a skullcap (a yarmulke or kippa). They also attacked his wife.

Two cars "flying Palestinian flags and multiple motorcycles" pulled up to the couple at 8:00 p.m. while it was still daylight. They began yelling "anti-Jewish statements." Then, they threw a water bottle that hit his wife, and, when her husband came to her defense, they "punched him in the head."

The suspects fled. No arrests have been made. The 27-year-old man refused medical attention at the scene.

This is my neighborhood, my home town. This incident took place about a mile away from where I live and work. So far, I have found only one brief article about this in the New York Post.

Are there more such incidents that are not being covered?

There are so many synagogues on the upper east side of New York City and so many visibly Jewish men and women. New York City's largest mosque is also on the upper east side. What are Jews supposed to do? Hide our faith – even as more and more Muslims in this very neighborhood proudly proclaim theirs by wearing hijab, burqas, Islamic skullcaps, and Islamic dress? Something is very wrong with this picture.

Jews do not attack Muslims or Christians – or anyone for that matter – for wearing religiously identifiable clothing or jewelry. Only ​some ​Muslims ​appear ​do that – ​some ​Muslims or pro-Muslim sympathizers.

Jews and Christians are not allowed to openly and visibly practice their religion in most Muslim countries, and yet Muslims in America and Europe expect to be able to practice their faith, often in very aggressive ways, in both America and Europe....

Now, Jews everywhere are being held responsible for and hostage to Israeli acts of self-defense, which, alas, have been touted in the media as aggressive and genocidal acts. The media, the professoriate, international bodies, religious and political leaders have followed this lethal narrative for so long and so intensely that people really believe that Jews and Jewish Israel are evil and must be attacked on sight.

What we are seeing is this: The decades of Big Lies in the media, inflammatory sermons in mosques, churches, and synagogues, which falsely present Israel and Jews as genocidal Nazis, have finally empowered the latent hatred among Arab Muslims and their sympathizers in the diaspora to freely attack individual Jewish civilians as targets and symbols – nay, as collaborators – with the Israeli regime....'

By Australian Jewish News publisher Robert Magid in the latest issue, out today, a excellent op-ed entitled "The Media's True Lies" prompted by his recent visit to Britain, and the high levels of indignation at Israel's actions in Operation Protective Shield among the public there, prompting disturbances and discomfort for Jews. 

 '.... For a whole month the visual media has been bombarding us with what Hamas wants us to see ....

The conclusion we are to draw: "Israel bombs – innocent people die".

What we have witnessed this month is [sic] the most slavish, most egregious examples of media manipulation which can only be described as propaganda: a Hollywood show, produced and directed by Hamas and performed by the corps of media producers, directors, journalists, freelancers and stringers presented verbatim from a script written by Hamas.

Forgotten is the cause of the war: deadly barrages of rockets directed at Israel unprovoked and the construction of tunnels intended for a massive attack on civilians in the South.  Rather than Netanyahu rushing to war, in Israel the main criticism of him is that he held back so long despite ample evidence  that Hamas was building tunnels under Israel....'

 He goes on:

'.... Why aren't we told about the manipulation of information such as the rearrangement of bodies for the cameras. Why do they keep repeating ... that according to the UN the overwhelming majority of the casualties are civilians?

They know thatthe dubious information is provided by Hamas and the UN has no independent means of verifying it.  According to Israel's checks of the dead, a majority are combatants.

We are not told that journalists are regularly physically threatened if they deviate from the script.  Why haven't journalists reported even after they left Gaza that they operated under coercion?....'

I can only suggest that the answer to the last question might be that the journalists fear that the media outlets for which they work might on a future occasion send them back there ...

For more on this subject of intimidation of journalists be sure to read David Gerstman's article here  and Daniel Greenfield's article here 

Three cheers for this leading American Reform rabbi!

As for media bias in Britain, please don't neglect to look at the latest posts by blogger and activist Edgar Davidson here and here

See also Harry's Place here

Voices From Eurabia (videos)

A British Islamist: "Only ISIS will help Palestine"

A Spanish Islamist: "Allah, Destroy the Plundering Jews, Do Not Spare a Single One"

Percentages of people with a positive view of ISIS:

 (Read more on that public opinion poll and its implications here)
 

What Makes The Welsh Greens' Leader "Think"

Flamboyant, statuesque  and with a flair for courting the limelight, Pippa Bartolotti is leader of the Welsh Greens, and in May tried for a seat in the European Parliament.

One of that monstrous regiment of liberated western feminists who for reasons best-known to themselves appear to prefer the Hamas misogynists to the gender-tolerant Israelis, she is known for her oft-expressed condemnation of Israel, and for her participation in the flotilla/flytilla stunts.

She is also known for making a bit of a fool of herself by displaying a flag with a far-from- blemish-free symbolism:

And for this rant while in transit in Israel in 2011.

On Facebook she's shared this video, of Gazans celebrating the new ceasefire, interpreted by them as a "victory" over Israel (So, h/t to Ms Bartolotti).

Here's a nugget of naive and noisome nonsense that she's also posted on Facebook within the past twenty-four hours.

A sensible riposte from a fellow-countryman of hers that, predictably,  has not gone down well among the leftist Israel-haters who follow her:

Ms Bartolotti is by no means the first leftist Israel-basher to attempt to push an analogy between Anglo-Jews who have served in the IDF and Bristish Muslims who have flocked to the banners of extremist forces in the Middle East from the United Kingdom, "the Yemen of the West" as one journalist is calling it.  (I seem to recall that Stephen Sizer made a remark along those lines of Ms Bartolotti's on Facebook some time ago.) And I doubt she will be the last.

It is, of course, utterly ridiculous to draw a parallel between Jews who have served in Israel's defensive wars and Muslims who have joined the ranks of Jihad.  It is a false analogy that in today's antisemitic climate only serves further to demonise Anglo-Jews and of course Israel itself, and indeed to minimise the repellent preoccupations of the Britons fighting for ISIS.

It marks a fresh low in the Left's ongoing crusade against Israel and Zionism and in the Left's inexplicable love affair with Islam and Islamists.

Update:

That particular virus eems to be catching

 Read more about Yasmin Queshi's remarks here

Rooting For The Enemy: Hamas's Jewish Useful Idiots

 http://www.creativecommunityforpeace.com/justice/

'We, the undersigned, are saddened by the devastating loss of life endured by Israelis and Palestinians in Gaza. We are pained by the suffering on both sides of the conflict and hope for a solution that brings peace to the region.

While we stand firm in our commitment to peace and justice, we must also stand firm against ideologies of hatred and genocide which are reflected in Hamas' charter, Article 7 of which reads, “There is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him!” The son of a Hamas founder has also commented about the true nature of Hamas.

Hamas cannot be allowed to rain rockets on Israeli cities, nor can it be allowed to hold its own people hostage. Hospitals are for healing, not for hiding weapons. Schools are for learning, not for launching missiles. Children are our hope, not our human shields.

We join together in support of the democratic values we all cherish and in the hope that the healing and transformative power of the arts can be used to build bridges of peace.'

It's good to see people from the arts community, including Hollywood A-listers, speaking out against Hamas in this way.  If only more, many many more, would nail their colours to the mast.

What is particularly satisfying about the above list of signatories is that it includes Roseanne Barr, who has, if reports can be trusted, made some unpleasant references to Israel and Zionism in the past but who has been outspokenly supportive of Israel for some time .

An (occasional) Hollywood personality (Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Torch Song Trilogy), the estimable Ben Stein, observed last month:

"The media in this country for a very long time has been contemptuous of Jews and contemptuous of Jewish life.

This was true during the Holocaust, when the media was largely controlled by old, lying, wealthy, white Protestant males, and it's true now when it's controlled by mostly left-wingers....

The media likes to portray Jews as bullies and murderers and . . . it's kind of amazing to me, because so much of the media is Jewish....

[T]here's a deep-seated self-hatred, especially [among] the New York City elite media.

They want to show they're not Jewish by being anti-Israel, and it's not going to work. We know they're Jewish and we know that they're not being fair to their own people, but they'll keep doing it...

Every story about the war in Gaza should begin with 'Hamas started it, Hamas endlessly refuses to have a ceasefire.'

Hamas could have an incredibly prosperous and happy, peaceful partnership with Israel, and they don't, they prefer to fight, they prefer to kill....''

Now, they might seem naive and innocuous enough, but these protesters  (see the videos here and here and here and here) disrupting in relays a fundraising dinner for Israel at the Chicago Hilton on 21 August, at which the city's mayor Rahm Emanuel and Michael Oren (Israel's ex-ambassador to the United States) spoke, are representatives of an odious organisation which effectively gives aid and comfort to Hamas: the bizarrely-named "Jewish Voice For Peace" (JVP).

Bizarrely-named, because as the heading to an article dated 20 August by Yitzhak Santis, Chief Programs Officer at Jerusalem-based NGO Monitor (where he directs the “BDS in the Pews” project) declares

 "Jews abetting Hamas are no voice for peace".

Rooting for the enemy

Sinisterly, JVP keeps its source or sources of funding firmly under wraps; needless to say, if we knew who finances it we would know who pulls its strings.

Writes Santis inter alia:

 '... JVP’s executive director, Rebecca Vilkomerson, describes her group as “the Jewish wing of the [Palestinian solidarity] movement,” with the mission “to facilitate conversations inside the Jewish community… [to] put that wedge in, saying the Jewish community’s not agreeing on these issues.”

 That’s it. JVP seeks to divide American Jews—Israel’s main foundation of international support—so as to reduce or eliminate U.S. backing for Israel for the benefit of Israel’s enemies.  

Undermining Israel ...

JVP is part of the international NGO “soft power” war, whose unrelenting attacks on Israel’s right to self-defense ultimately aid Hamas.

 This global political warfare strategy includes sustained delegitimization campaigns, BDS (boycotts, divestment, and sanctions), and promoting a “right of return” for Palestinians, which means dismantling Israel as a Jewish and democratic state.

... every step ...

 It partners with a wide coterie of radical leftist, Islamist, and Arab ultra-nationalist groups to promote its program. When asked, JVP states that they are “agnostic” about a two-state solution. But that is a smokescreen. The group’s actions demonstrate a clear anti-Israel agenda. [Emphasis added here and below]

A JVP contingent marched at a July 12 “peace” demonstration in San Francisco, where “anti-war” protesters waved Hamas banners and burned an Israeli flag while chanting in Arabic “Ya Hamas, ya habib, udrub, udrub Tel Abib!” (Oh, dear Hamas, strike a blow at Tel Aviv!)  Signs read, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” “From Gaza to Ramallah Forever Intifada,” and “F*** Zionism!” The rally’s advertising demanded an “end to US aid to Israel and to Zionist rule over Palestine.”

... of the way ...

In Los Angeles, JVP teamed up with American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) to “put on a massive die-in street theater.” AMP’s website refers to Hamas as a “Palestinian resistance group.”  In Detroit, JVP protested for the release of convicted terrorist Rasmea Odeh....

JVP calls the current conflict with Hamas “Israel’s war on civilians”—which follows Hamas PR guidelines to describe “anyone killed or martyred” as “a civilian from Gaza or Palestine.”  JVP demands an “end [to] the siege on Gaza,” a central Hamas demand. JVP insists the U.S. “suspend military aid to Israel,” which would also benefit Hamas and other jihadist terrorists. Finally, when JVP supports the call to “Stand Against Zionism Everywhere,” it is clear whose water they are carrying. JVP stands unmasked as anything but a voice for peace.'

Read the entire article (with its links) here 

"O, Scoundrels, Let Me Deliver A Personal Message To You..." (video)

"We are preparing for you an army you cannot match ... to die for the sake of Allah"

With bloodcurdling ferocity a Hamas cleric promises Jihad against the Zionist Entity:

Meanwhile, regarding Australia ...

Hamas/ISIS: The Blind & The Unblinkered

From the lefty Frontline Club's website: http://www.frontlineclub.com/first-wednesday-16/

We are informed by BBC Watch:

'On September 3rd the Frontline Club – with which the BBC frequently collaborates – will be hosting an event titled “Reporting the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict – Emotion, Bias and Objectivity” which we are informed is already fully booked.

The topic of discussion is promoted as follows:

“The latest chapter in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict has again highlighted the difficulties of covering this complex and deep-rooted conflict that provokes such a strong emotional response from the general public.

The BBC has faced accusation that it is not critical enough of Israel’s actions and that its reporting is one-sided, whereas Channel 4 News has been accused of crossing the line between journalism and campaigning. Is there a middle ground?

In the face of such devastation should we expect correspondents to offer an objective view devoid of emotion? If we encourage correspondents to show more emotion do we risk compromising the credibility and standard of journalism in this country?

Join us as we take a view of the coverage we have seen, talk to the journalists that have produced it and ask what we can learn.”

On the panel selected to provide answers to those questions are Jeremy ‘I see no human shields’ Bowen and Channel 4’s Jon Snow.

 The discussion would doubtless be enhanced were Bowen  (along with his colleague Orla Guerin) to take the trouble to brush up beforehand on the topic of Hamas’ use of human shields and that policy’s role in causing so many of the civilian casualties which he graphically reported during his recent stint in the Gaza strip....' 

But it is not only regarding the existence of human shields in Gaza that the BBC has turned a blind eye.  Beeboids (as the BiasedBBC website has long termed the Corporation's employees) have also chosen to ignore Hamas's similarities to Isis.

The incorrigibly biased Jon Donnison (pictured) might well practise an Orla Guerin-like scowl. For Al Beeb's erstwhile correspondent in Gaza, who's now their man in Australia but who was flown back to his old stomping ground during the present crisis, where he proved just as one-sided as before, has received many a thoroughly deserved, humiliating thrashing from BBCWatch's Hadar Sela.

That highly intelligent Israeli,with her thorough grounding in Israeli history and affairs, her sound knowledge of regional geopolitics, her gift for the written world, and her astuteness, has shown up Donnison's mediocrity, ignorance, and prejudice many times.

See, for example, here and here and here and here

And, not unnaturally, Donnison doesn't like the besting one bit: witness the recent spiteful trying-to-put-a-brave-face-on-things sour grapes tweet below:

Not that being shown up prevents Donnison from persisting in his offences against the BBC Charter and producers' guidelines or motivates his employer to rein him in.  Nor did his egregious bias prevent him from winning a Radio Academy Silver Sony Award for radio journalism of the year for his coverage of the 2012 Gaza/Israel War.

His bias is so overt and so pervasive that it is hardly surprising that some Israel supporters wonder whether this former reporter for BBC Radio Sheffield, who studied French and politics at the University of Edinburgh, was once a member of or influenced in some way by a Palestine Solidarity Campaign branch. 

And like the BBC's biased Jerusalem Bureau chief Paul Danaher, Donnison, who does nothing to conceal his disdain for the Israeli prime minister, on Twitter has pooh-pooed Netanyahu's analogy between Hamas and Isis, and mocked aspects of Netanyahu's postings.  Here's a taste:

Here's a man who could teach Danahar and Donnison much, the exiled Jordanian Palestinian leader Mudar Zahran, who's been visiting Bethlehem at some risk to himself.

This brave pro-Israel figure (if you're on Facebook and/or Twitter please consider following him, for he deserves a wide audience) is a practising Muslim who pulls no punches in condemning the evil that Islamic extremists do.

Moreover, CiF Watch, who reponded to this insolent peevish tweet by Donnison

by pointing out that the true disrespect is Donnison's anti-Israel bias, has many graphic examples that validate the Hamas/ISIS analogy:

Novelist Noah Beck shows that  

'Hamas and ISIS are birds of a feather, but the Western political class and media have very different approaches to them. Here, Hamas offers some friendly advice to ISIS on how to wrap the West around their little finger'

which is a follow-up to his previous piece here

As  distinguished American political scientist Michael Curtis has written:

'The clue to the intentions of Hamas is given in the Hamas Charter of 1988, a mixture of anti-Semitism and hatred of Israel. Using the Avalon Project translation of the Charter or Covenant, one can discern the stated objectives of Hamas. Only a few selections, sometimes in oblique language, are necessary to understand this.

Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it. Hamas (the Islamic Resistance Movement) strives to raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine. The Day of Judgment will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say, "There is a Jew behind me; come and kill him."

The Hamas Charter gives an answer to all the well-meaning groups and individuals who call for a peace conference. It declares that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Muslim generations until Judgment Day. Rejecting calls for an international conference to solve the “Palestinian” question, it declares that there is no solution for the Palestinian question except through jihad.

Initiatives, proposals, and international conferences are all a waste of time and are vain endeavors.

The mass media will perhaps be surprised to learn from the Charter that Jews have taken control of the world media, news agencies, publishing houses, and broadcasting stations. Objective historians may be surprised that Jews have stirred revolutions in various parts of the world and were behind the French Revolution, the Communist Revolution, and most others. All this for “sabotaging societies and achieving Zionist interests.”

The Charter informs us of future developments. The Zionist plan is limitless. After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates. The Islamic Resistance Movement must prevent this, and to leave the “circle of struggle with Zionism is high treason.”

The question arises: can members of Hamas, who believe that the “Jews are behind each and every catastrophe on the face of the earth,” be genuinely interested in any possible reconciliation with Israel when destruction of the Jewish state is at the core of their concern?'

 Nevertheless, despite the equally bloodthirsty approach of both Hamas and Isis, their priorities, according to this article by Iranian Ali Mamouri, differ with regard to the Zionist Entity:

 ....'Salafists believe that jihad must be performed under legitimate leadership.... Given that there is neither a legitimate leader nor a Salafist-approved declaration of jihad in Palestine, fighting there is forbidden.

In addition, for Salafists, if non-Muslims control Islamic countries and apostates exist in the Islamic world, the Islamic world must be cleansed of them before all else. In short, the purification of Islamic society takes priority over combat against non-Islamic societies. On this basis, Salafists see conflict with an allegedly illegitimate Hamas government as a first step toward confrontation with Israel. Should the opportunity for military action present itself in the Palestinian territories, Salafists would fight Hamas and other factions deemed in need of “cleansing” from the land and engage Israel afterward....

Salafists today see that their priority as fighting Shiites, “munafiqin” (dissemblers, or false Muslims) and apostates, whom they call the “close enemy.” During the current war in Gaza, a number of IS fighters have burned the Palestinian flag because they consider it a symbol of the decline of the Islamic world, which succumbed to national divisions through the creation of independent political states. In Salafist doctrine, the entire Islamic world must be united under a single state, an Islamic caliphate, which IS declared in late June.

Salafist groups active in Gaza have engaged in various rivalries with Hamas there, but they have not succeeded in establishing a foothold of any significance. Some groups have posted video clips acknowledging their support for IS following the group’s recent victories in Iraq and Syria. The main dispute between Hamas and Salafist groups rests on their disparate principles. Hamas is more realistic and pragmatic than the jihadist Salafists. The former has political priorities in liberating Palestinian land, whereas the latter has religious priorities in the establishment of a totalitarian Islamic caliphate and considers the Israeli issue secondary to this central goal.'

 But to quote from another fine piece by Michael Curtis:

'....Along with the Muslim Brotherhood, [ISIS and Hamas] are Islamic extremist groups, violent in their ruthless pursuit of objectives – ISIS to create a caliphate empire, and Hamas to eliminate the State of Israel.

The brutality of ISIS, now transformed into an Islamic state with a caliph, is apparent after its conquest of about a third of Syria, including the oil-rich eastern part, and much of north and central Iraq. Its ruthlessness and brutality are well-documented. That ruthlessness includes making decapitation an art form, executing dozens of Iraqi security forces, and cutting heads of Syrians.

It has imposed sharia law, banned music, separated boys and girls in school, and forced women to wear the niqab, or full veil....

Though the Obama administration has not proposed this, the present conflict provides the opportunity for the existing semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan, set up in 2005, to be transformed into a Kurdish state, long overdue since promised by Britain and France in 1920.

 If the Western democracies appeared for too long to be unaware of the scale of the danger of Islamist ISIS, many, especially those in the mainstream media and the churches, seem equally oblivious to the real nature and danger of Hamas.  

They have not accepted that the real contemporary struggle is between an extreme and regressive Islamist group, linked to the Muslim Brotherhood and interested in the killing of Jews and the creation of a caliphate state, and the existence and survival of democratic Israel....

There is now little doubt that much of the hostility against Israel has been transformed into prejudicial anti-Semitism. The level of violence and the number of attacks on individual Jews and Jewish institutions, synagogues, school, stores, Holocaust memorials, and cultural events has made those institutions resemble armed fortresses. A crowd mentality of hatred has made decent individuals afraid to speak out....

Western public opinion, the media, and the academic world should recognize the existing struggle between an Islamist threat that would end the tolerance and civil liberties in the societies its forces might control, and democratic countries, with all their faults and problems, trying to resist that threat.

The choice should not be difficult, even for the New York Times.  It certainly should not be suicide. '

 Read the entire article here

 As for Aussie Muslims who support ISIS, and the attitude to such goings-on by certain leftists, read Andrew Bolt here