Mr Gatoff Presents ... (videos)

Spending New Year's Eve at home?

Get a load of these.

This video begins with Aussie federal minister Josh Frydenberg telling it like it is about the Sydney-based Grand Mufti (see my post here):

 And a sassy summing up of the year now closing:

 Interesting stuff from Newt's News, eh?

Yes, Virginia, Miracles Do Happen

As infrequently happens, a great article in Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz that actually supports Israel rather than denigrating it.

This one is by a freshman at Ivy League institution Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, who observes:

 '.... Anti-Israel circles understand that their cause isn’t even on the radar of the average college student. By hitching their wagon to issues with greater popular appeal, pro-Palestinian activists seek to expand their tent and build a coalition larger than the handful of students fanatic enough to spend their college years slandering Israel.

Ironically, this disturbing phenomenon is hardest not on conservative-leaning Jewish students, but on left-wing Jewish activists who don’t support BDS. Social justice work is increasingly seen as a “package,” and one cannot be for racial justice, gender equality or humanitarianism without also swearing allegiance to the cult of Israel-despisers.

Left-wing Jews hew to the same social vision as the progressive community – but Israel and BDS are thorns for those who still believe in Zionism....

This discomfort is particularly dangerous because left-leaning young Jews are a weak link in the American-Jewish community’s relationship with Israel. As any exit poll can tell you, American-Jews do not, on the whole, vote based on Israel. American Jews vote for candidates who share their liberal social values. Thus, liberalism trumps pro-Israelism for most secular Jews. What will be when liberal Jewish students are forced to choose between their allegiance to Israel and their commitment to social justice? What will happen when not supporting BDS is seen as a fatal tribal weakness? The answer should frighten anybody concerned with the future of the Diaspora’s relationship with Israel.' 

 Read all of Jared Samilow's article here

Of course, the true miracle will come when the leftist Israel-haters, including "feminists" like the ones in the image above, cast off their blinkers and castigate the countries that really do curtail human rights, including the human rights of that half of humanity considered inferior and treated as little higher than animals in certain cultures and countries.

Supporting brave true feminists such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali would be a welcome first step.

(For a loathsome pro-BDS "feminist" article, by an ex-pat Israeli no less, see here)

Ayaan Hirsi Ali telling last year why she supports Israel (a powerful argument from her):

Myrtle & The Meshuggenehs (video)

"Broken Britain." "Double Standards." "Easy Targets." 

None of those phrases actually appears in this video.

However, the video speaks for itself:

Hat tip:  Vlad Tepes Blog

Heavy Breather Spews Antisemitism on BBC London Radio Broadcast

They're from Khazaria, don't you know.  "They control the money."  "The Rothschilds control us."  But our anti-"Zionist" heavy breather seems to like "those guys in the big hats and the curly hair". The ones who are "pure Judaists," you see.  (Ah, yes, the Neturei Karta nuts who are so screwed up that they join in anti-Israel demos on Shabbat.)

I wonder whether the Heavy Breather turns up at anti-Israel demos or just curses da Joos from his garret.

The presenter, Simon Lederman, pluckily debates him, but, as Lederman freely admits, gives him more airtime than he's given anyone.  Overall, many people would say "Foolish Lederman, and shame on the BBC for giving this obvious antisemite 13 minutes of airtime".  After all, as one appalled listener comments, "You can't reason with prejudice."

Meanwhile, just three examples of Facebook antisemitism Reader P sent my way yesterday (regarding the first, what the devil do the pronouncements of Patricia Hewitt and Harriet Harman have to do with the Magen David?! Sick, so very sick.  The others are from anti-"Zionist" sources.):

"It's baaaack!"

And how.

David Singer: Palestine – Elections Key To Ending Senseless Acts Of Self-Destruction

Here's the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.

He writes:

Elections in the West Bank and Gaza – last held in 2006 – increasingly appear to be the key to ending the past three months of random Arab stabbing and car ramming attacks on Israel’s Jewish civilian population, armed forces, border police and security guards.

97 stabbings were recorded – including at least 14 committed by Arab children aged between 11 and 16 and another 16 between ages 17 and 21.

19 cars were deliberately driven off the roads into crowds of people waiting at bus stops or assembly points.

These attacks occurred both in Israel and the West Bank.

Most of the perpetrators were killed or apprehended committing such acts – whilst a few remain at large.

Israel explains these latest tactics as forming part of the strategy of “popular resistance” adopted at the Sixth Fatah Conference in August 2009 by the Palestinian Authority (defunct since 2013) and Fatah – the dominant party in the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

Such call to action resulted from continuing frustration that negotiations between Israel and the PLO under the 1993 Oslo Accords and the 2003 Bush Roadmap had failed to create a Jew-free Palestinian Arab State throughout the entire West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza.

The reality is that such a negotiated solution has always been an impossible pipe dream that could never happen.

500,000 Jews will not voluntarily vacate their homes nor abandon their livelihoods in the West Bank and East Jerusalem to satisfy these racist and totally unacceptable PLO territorial demands – a major stumbling block to successfully concluding any negotiated agreement.

At present:

1. The PLO exercises exclusive administrative control over 95 per cent of the existing West Bank Arab population who live within about 40 per cent of the West Bank (Areas “A” and “B”)

2. The PLO exercises exclusive security control in Area “A” and shares security control with Israel in Area “B”

3. Israel exercises exclusive administrative and security control over Area “C” – 60 per cent of the West Bank – where 350,000 Jews and 50,000 Arabs currently reside

4. Hamas exercises complete administrative and security control in all of Gaza

5. East Jerusalem has been unilaterally declared to be part of Israel’s capital

The PLO and Hamas are still engaged in an internecine struggle extending over the last eight years to achieve complete political dominance over the other in the West Bank and Gaza whilst denying their long-suffering populations any say on who they want to govern them.

Given these unresolved political stalemates – between Israel/PLO and PLO/Hamas  – one must legitimately question why those Arabs presently sacrificing their lives murdering Jews do not choose to vent their wrath against the PLO and Hamas by demanding long overdue elections.

The PLO and Hamas – like all previous Palestinian Arab leaders over the last 100 years – have refused any compromises with the Jewish people – inciting their own people to murder Jews and kill themselves in the process to advance their documented political objective of wiping Israel off the map.

Palestinian Arabs, denied a vote for the last 10 years, need the opportunity to express their continuing support or rejection of these policies.

Elections enabling fresh political parties to emerge with alternative leaderships offering new ideas on making peace with Israel appear as far away as ever.

The sorry story begun with the PLO in 1964 and Hamas in 1987 drags on with no hope for change.

“Popular resistance” in the West Bank and Gaza demanding long-overdue elections can achieve far better results than the spate of utterly futile and senseless acts of self-destruction directed against Jews during the last three months.

Casting a live vote always beats a dead end.

The BBC & the ABC's Sophie McNeill Have Themselves A Merry Little Christmas

It hasn't been half as blatant as this, when the BBC cribbed what its ideological stable mate wrote the year before

But it's Yuletide, and that gives the Corporation an opportunity as golden as the wise men's guiding star to have a go or five at Israel.  Just as its ideological stable mate The Guardian does each Christmas Eve too.

The Christmas story, with its cast of supporting characters, has again given the BBC (step forward Yolande Knell and Co.) the chance to spin some anti-Israel propaganda lite via a series of specially made videos with modern residents of Bethlehem standing in for those in the familiar narrative.

The people selected are no doubt good and worthy individuals, but it is the propagandistic use to which the BBC intentionally puts the interviews that sticks in the craw like a swallowed sixpence from a traditional Christmas pudding.

The propaganda shows this year in the interview with the "shepherd" and the "wise man" where the BBC has fun with its "Israel says" that comes up on screen.  It's as if to tell the audience: "Nudge, wink, well they would say that, but we don't believe them, do we?"

The interview with the shepherd is hardly balanced, with its male reporter saying: "Look how much injustice and grievance there has been on this land"...

It would be wrong to claim that the BBC never draws attention to the plight of persecuted Christians around the world.

But it seldom does so.

Yet, by contrast, it never misses an opportunity, at this time of the year, to air the grievances, real and imagined, of Christians in Bethlehem, because that provides as much fodder as Joseph's donkey could eat for a week in providing nourishment for the Israel-bashing cause.

Of course, the plight of Christians suffering from manifestations of Islamic supremacy in the West Bank and Gaza is never going to feature in these Yuletide messages by the BBC.

Strange, isn't it, how the leftist Al Beeb permits all sorts of blasphemy and scorn on its airwaves against Christians and Christianity, yet gets all teary-eyed and sanctimonious about Christians (in the Holy Land, that is) when 24 December rolls around?

Meanwhile, the ABC's Sophie McNeill, a pro-Palestinian activist by background and inclination, joins in the festivities:

This excellent article by Michael Danby is what the lady's referring to; good onya, Mr Danby!

More current McNeillisms:

No wonder this woman, who, just like the BBC reporters, is bound by her employer's Charter to be objective but isn't, has her detractors!

Now that the ABC has named a successor to outgoing head honcho Mark Scott (defending her here)  Ms McNeill must no longer be able to get away with her outrageous bias.

Hat On, Gloves Off: A London anti-Israel activist's antisemitic rant

Anyone who has looked regularly at MrAlexSeymour's YouTube channel will probably be aware of a pretty lady with a penchant for pretty headgear.

The lady in question is hardly going to be mistaken for an admirer of Israel.

 She sometimes appears in the videos he makes and posts that show

not-so-pretty demos in London demonising Israel.

Here are a couple of stills from his videos in which the pretty lady strikes a charming pose while surrounded by some decidedly non-charming placards.

 Recollect her now?

Well, anyway, this past week (hat tip – no pun intended – Reader P) the lady has been posting, as is her right and her wont, on social media.

In the process of revealing the various bees under her bonnet she has unwittingly bought in to that perennial chestnut about a "Palestinian" football team that played in Australia in 1939, the team which, as I've blogged a few times (including here), was an initiative of the Yishuv under the Mandate, the team consisting entirely of Jews:

That just evokes a small sigh and a giggle.  But look at what else the pretty lady posted on Facebook the same day.  The "anti-Zionist"/"pro-Palestinian" brigade are normally so very careful to deny that they are antisemitic.  Yet the lady, with this message, pulls no punches:

Despite (or perhaps because of) the antisemitism inherent in that post, it's now got 45 "Likes" (ten more than when Reader P screenshot it and sent it to me.

Among those who have "liked" it is the person who has since posted the following filth on the pretty lady's Facebook wall:

Also posted to that wall is ordure such as this:

Sad to say, such examples of dung have their "Like" button pressers.

It is certainly instructive to discover what "anti-Zionists" really think ...

Da Joos: "Slaughter Them & Skin Them" (video)

Nothing festive about these chants, but then they weren't meant for Christmas. They've just surfaced, thanks to Memri.org.

 To quote Memri:

 'In a marching drill of the Algerian National Gendarmerie, the soldiers chant: "Turn your guns towards the Jews... in order to kill them... slaughter them... and skin them." The video was posted on the Internet on November 1 to mark Algeria's Revolution Day, but the post did not state when the video was filmed.'

If it's Christmas cheer you're after, don't bother going to Brunei!

David Singer: European Union Suffers Continuing Backlash Over Racist Labelling Laws

Here's the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.

He writes:

The Czech Parliament’s lower House  – by an overwhelming majority with all parties except the Communists supporting it – has joined fellow European Union (EU) members – Greece and Hungary – in urging the Czech Government to refuse implementing EU racist and discriminatory labelling laws for Jewish goods produced in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights.

Czech Culture Minister Daniel Herman said that it was:

“absolutely necessary to reject the efforts to discriminate against the only democracy in the Middle East.”

Another Czech politician Frantisek Laudat argued that the guidelines:

“may evoke awkward reminiscence of marking Jewish people during World War II” 

The Czech Assembly declared the new EU guidelines were:

“motivated by a political positioning versus the State of Israel”

That political positioning has seen the EU:

1. Claim that settlement by Jews in Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem is illegal in international law despite the provisions of article 6 of the Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the United Nations Charter specifically authorising and preserving the rights of Jews to live there for the purpose of reconstituting the Jewish National Home.

2. Engage in supporting unauthorised, unapproved and surreptitious Arab building projects in Area “C” in Judea and Samaria where administrative and security control is solely vested in Israel under the Oslo Accords.

3. Ignore that Jews lived in these self-same designated areas for generations before being driven out and ethnically cleansed by six Arab armies in 1948  – resulting in these areas being illegally annexed and occupied by Jordan between 1948 and 1967.

To add to the EU’s current woes and expose the hypocrisy of these labelling regulations – the EU’s second highest judicial body - the General Court – has determined that the 2012 fishing agreement between the EU and Morocco must be annulled because it also applied to the Western Sahara - disputed territory under Morocco’s control since 1976.

The court cited United Nations resolutions classifying the Western Sahara as occupied – faulting the EU for pursuing its agreement with Morocco without making any distinction concerning products manufactured in the Western Sahara.

Although there are some 200 areas of disputed territory around the world – the EU has seen fit to only require special labelling laws for Jewish goods originating from territories disputed between Jews and Arabs.

The EU is considering an appeal.

The ire of the US Congress has now also been raised.

Representative Nita Lowey (Democrat) sponsored the introduction of the following resolution into the House of Representatives on 16 December – which has now been referred to the House Foreign Affairs Committee:

“H.Res. 567: Expressing opposition to the European Commission interpretive notice regarding labeling Israeli products and goods manufactured in the West Bank and other areas, as such actions undermine efforts to achieve a negotiated Israeli-Palestinian peace process.”

Numerous attempts by Secretary of State John Kerry to bring about a negotiated “two state solution”  – first laid out in the 2003 Bush Roadmap  – have come to nought.

These discriminatory labelling regulations must materially affect any future negotiations and the opportunity for the first time in recorded history to create a second Arab State – in addition to Jordan – within the territory covered by the Mandate for Palestine.

The EU cannot realistically cancel these regulations – given the anger and resentment such back down would engender in the Arab world.

Such blatant anti-Jewish bias ends the EU playing a constructive role in influencing any division of these territories between their Arab and Jewish claimants.

The EU instead finds itself being increasingly labelled with a particular odium and tainted reputation because of these malicious regulations.

Sheer Nonsense About "Apartheid" (video)

Some familiar fanatics here.  Israel-demonising seems to be their all-consuming hobby, but I guess the bloke with the Irish accent and the grey-haired gal with the fruity tones (often heard in other videos by our old mate Alex Seymour)  have left off reciting anti-Israel "poetry" to hapless Tube train commuters, which was a stunt of theirs a couple of years or so back.

Watch the well-spoken "man of colour" (as he describes himself) tell his eager interviewer that there's no greater "display of apartheid than the wall" (obviously, he hasn't read my post here!) and his adulation for a certain politician (no prizes for guessing the one he has in mind!).

I would have thought Israel-bashing by the Frauen might have taken a back seat in Deutschland, given the troubles that Mrs Merkel's Open Door policy seems to be wreaking for the female of the species:

Read article here

 But, no, they're still staging "flash mob" stunts.  Careful, ladies, you might one day find yourselves prone for real, if the above article is any indication.

"The Cultural-Economic Boycott of the Jewish State Draws a Great Deal of Strength from Christianity"

With regard to this item, Professor W.D. (Bill) 
Rubinstein has written a guest blog, as follows, showing what a bunch of leftist ratbags constitute Australia's Uniting Church and how that church is in decline:

'The Uniting Church is the third largest Christian denomination in Australia, behind the Catholics and the Anglicans. It was founded in 1977 by a merger of most (not all) Methodists, Presbyterians, and Congregationalists (and thus is unique to Australia). It is also well-known for its extreme left-wing stance on every conceivable issue.

In recent weeks it has also gone on record as endorsing most of the BDS movement, although it has previously attacked Israel several times before. Needless to say, it has nothing whatever to say about, for instance, the Syrian conflict, in which Assad has killed 250,000 of his own people, or, indeed, Islamic terrorism.

 Its takes on so-called "social justice" issues, which may be seen on its website, is a virtual pastiche of left-wing, politically correct stances on every known left-wing cause: climate change, disarmament, gays, Aborigines, illegal immigrants, a "fairer tax system" (this is particularly rich coming from a body exempt from taxation)- you name it, the Uniting Church has jumped on every politically correct bandwagon that has rolled along, apparently to the exclusion of any and all traditional religious issues. Needless to say, the left's current "when in doubt, kick the Jews" mantra is well to the fore.

My main point here, however, is to highlight the fact that the Uniting Church is a body, in terms of its membership, in catastrophic decline. The statistics of this decline are simply staggering. To its credit, the Uniting Church collects and publishes accurate statistics about itself, most recently in the 2013 Uniting Church Census, released in 2014 and available online. The picture this document presents is of a church rapidly heading for extinction. In 1991, on a typical Sunday 163,000 people attended a Uniting Church service anywhere in Australia. In 2013 that number had declined to only 97,000 in the entire country, barely more than the number attending an important AFL [Australian Football League] game on a weekend in August.

 Probably ten times as many people in Australia will see the newest Star Wars movie in the next month. Between 1991 and 2013, attendance at a Uniting Church service has thus declined by 40 per cent. This figure is actually even worse than it seems at first, since in the same period the population of Australia has increased by 35 per cent, from 17 million to 23 million.

In the same period the number of active Uniting Church congregations has declined from 3019 to 2078- in other words, 31 per cent of all Uniting Church congregations have simply closed down through lack of members in only twenty-two years. According to the same survey, 26 per cent of its congregations had no children as members, while another 28 per cent had only 1-4 children as members. In 2013 the average Uniting Church congregation had 2.0 baptisms of new members- and 3.66 funerals. Any business with this track record of abject failure would have long since sacked its entire management- assuming, of course, that it had not already filed for bankruptcy.

It seems very likely- perhaps undeniable – that this diminution in numbers is related to the Uniting Church's left-wing stance on every known issue. Literally hundreds of thousands of former Church adherents have voted with their feet to leave it, in all likelihood most of them conventional families with children. Like other liberal Protestant denominations the Uniting Church may imagine that it can acquire a new source of membership from among minorities, refugees, the poor, gays, political activists, and so on, but all the evidence suggests that their numbers are simply too small to begin to balance the disappearing mainstream.

 The decline of the Uniting Church is also a cause, as well as a product, of its left-wing agenda. As the Church shrinks and conservatives and moderates leave in droves, those remaining will consist, as an ever-greater percentage of its total membership, of committed radicals, whose power and influence within the Church will automatically increase as the Church declines in membership. Soon, however, there may be nothing left. Jews and others who are concerned at the Uniting Church's stance on Israel should bear in mind that they may not have a problem for much longer, although its hostility towards Israel and, indeed, to the West may be louder than ever.'

That is, obviously, reassuring.

Nevertheless, as Richard Mather recently points out in a must-read piece concerning the Christian war on Israel on another front, the despicable collusion of some western Christians in the ludicrous fiction that Jesus was a "Palestinian":

'Of all the anti-Israel discourses that exist today, Christian Palestinianism is perhaps one of the most disturbing because it resurrects the notion of Jews as accursed Christ-killers who deserve permanent exile. As with all anti-Semitic ideas, Christian Palestinianism is about resentment. It is a projection of a sense of inferiority onto an external scapegoat – the Jews.

Egyptian Jewish writer Bat Ye’or believes that the concept of Jesus the Palestinian is symbolic of a growing religious trend – Palestinian replacement theology and the gradual Islamisation of Christianity. Christian Palestinianists, according to Ye’or interpret the Bible from an Islamic point of view and “do not admit to any historical or theological link between the biblical Israel, the Jewish people and the modern State of Israel.”

Ye’or also points to the similarity between Palestinian replacement theology and Marcion gnosticism, which was a second century Christian heresy. Marcion gnostics rejected the Hebrew Bible and believed that the God of Israel was inferior to the God of the New Testament.  Likewise, Christian Palestinianists want to “de-Zionise” the Tanakh, strip Jesus of his Jewish heritage and neutralise prophetic statements relating to Jews and the land of Israel.

Read article here

As well as being  politically motivated, Christian Palestinianism is a religious assault on Judaism and should be seen in the context of centuries of anti-Jewish persecution and ridicule by both Christians and Muslims who are embarrassed and frustrated by the continued existence of the Jewish people.

Make no mistake. The cultural-economic boycott of the Jewish state draws a great deal of strength from Christianity. Much of the anti-Zionism emanating from West can be traced back to faith-based organisations who are either ambivalent about Israel or downright hostile. Christian Aid, the Quakers, the Church of England, the Church of Scotland and the Presbyterians are among those who are guilty of demonising Israel.

And then there are individuals such as Reverend Dr. Stephen Sizer (a prominent and notorious Anglican vicar in England) who believes that Jerusalem and the land of Israel “have been made irrelevant to God’s redemptive purposes,” and that Jews were expelled from the land because “they were more interested in money and power.”

In other words, it is not just Islam and the Left that are responsible for the ostracism and demonisation of the Jewish state. Many Christians, especially those who have embraced the new anti-Semitic replacement theology known as Christian Palestinianism, should be held to account for rekindling the same anti-Jewish prejudices and hatreds that resulted in the Holocaust.' [Emphasis added]

If you live in or near Los Angeles the following conference may be for you:

 Read about it here

"Not Much Different From Harper": Canadian anti-Israel fanatic in London tells (video)

In London on Saturday, musically-challenged anti-Israel fanatics demonstrate yet again outside the Israeli Sabon store, incidentally turning a carol into a dirge.

The video-maker, arch-BDSer/Israel-hater Alex Seymour, bails up a Canadian BDSer, a  young bloke who mouths, albeit in soft tones, all the usual bile against Israel, alleging its misdeeds "since 1948" and regretting that the "right of return" isn't recognised, before turning to the issue of whether Justin Trudeau will prove "better" than Stephen Harper.  Alas, it seems that "there's a very big Zionist lobby" in Canada just as there is in its neighbour to the south, and that on a certain issue, therefore, Trudeau is likely to be "not much different from Harper".

Aw, shame.

Have a Merry Christmas nonetheless, Mr Alex Seymour; thanks for the videos, and go easy on the fruitcake!

Meanwhile, our old friend Mick Napier and his Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign have a dodgy Yuletide quiz for the delectation of the Israel-demonising crowd.  (How about a few questions about all the beneficial technological and medical breakthroughs that emanate from the Zionist Entity, eh, Mick?)

Bombast At Tiffany's (video)

My previous post shows Israel-haters in Portugal disrupting a performance by the Jerusalem Quartet, which played stoically on.

This video shows the voluble Sandra and her little band of retainers staging a stunt outside Tiffany's in London's Bond Street on Saturday.

Happily, most pedestrians give the BDS fanatics a wide berth and just walk on by.

In Portugal, Israel-Haters Disrupt Jerusalem Quartet Performance (video)

Ugly scenes here:

 As poisonous as a "Portuguese man of war," this (translated) message from Israel-haters in the country known as "England's oldest ally":

 Activists protested on Wednesday (16/12) the concert of the Jerusalem Quartet at the Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon. They opposed the Quartet's official association with the Israeli army committing war crimes against Palestinians.

In a video released by the Comité de Solidariedade com a Palestina protesters are seen chanting "boycott Israel" as the concert was taking place. At one point the Jerusalem Quartet was forced to interrupt the performance.

The heckling came in two waves and lasted for several minutes catching the audience by surprise. The Jerusalem Quartet seemed undaunted and indeed used to the protests given the frequency in which they take place at venues where they play around the world.

Protesters distributed leaflets explaining the reason for their action and condemned the Gulbenkian Foundation for hosting the Quartet despite appeals. This is the second time the Gulbenkian Foundation, an Armenian cultural institution based in Portugal, hosts the Jerusalem Quartet. Both times activists protested the performance.

This year Armenians from the diaspora, from the US and Palestine, wrote to the Foundation's management requesting the concert to be canceled. Similar appeals were sent by Portuguese citizens. They pointed at the Foundations history of support for Armenians in Palestine, who like other Palestinians live under Israel's occupation and apartheid, echoing evidence linking the Jerusalem Quartet with Israel's propaganda in defense of war and occupation. The appeals went unheeded and the Gulbenkian Foundation refused to address the arguments in the letters.

The direct action by Portugal's Comité de Solidariedade com a Palestina is in support of the Palestinian-led Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which advocates for a cultural boycott of Israeli cultural institutions complicit with Israel's violations of international law....

The Israeli ambassador to the UK said in 2008 when protesters disrupted the Quartet at the Edinburgh Festival “we must not give in to attempts to sabotage the marketing of Israeli art and culture….” Since the quartet has made no attempt to dissociate itself from Israel’s apartheid policies, issuing only half-baked statements, we can only conclude that it is happy to play under the patronage of the State of Israel and/or its institutions while the charges of war crimes against Israel hang thick in the air worldwide.

More poison from the northern Mediterranean:

"This Vote Sends a Very Hurtful Message to Australian Jews"

Dutney's article is pro-BDS, folks!

The Uniting Church in Australia (UCA) was formed in 1977 as the result of a merger between the Congregationalists, Methodists and Presbyterians here.  Its statement regarding Jews and Judaism notwithstanding, relations with the Jewish community have frequently been fraught owing to its often hostile attitude towards Israel, and like many Protestant churches nowadays it appears to have been hijacked by political leftists espousing many a trendy political cause.  (This descent into leftist political activism has seen it lose more members than any other church in Australia, by the way.)

During a debate on the Middle East its national assembly, reports The Australian newspaper, the UCA has "opened the way for members to embrace" the BDS movement, its president,  the anti-Israeli boycott, divestment and sanctions movement"

The Uniting Church in Australia has "opened the way for members to embrace the anti-Israeli boycott, divestment and sanctions movement", its president, Stuart McMillan saying that the church had "encouraged members to be ­informed and to consider personally boycotting" goods produced "within the occupied territories".

He added:

“At this particular time of great concern for peace in the Holy Land, indeed in the Middle East, we must all make every ­effort to build upon the good ­relations we have in Australia between people of faith, ­acknowledging we will see some things differently and act ­accordingly, but always with peace for the people of the region in mind.”

His explanation has cut little ice with with University of Melbourne academic Dr Dvir Abramovich, chairman of the B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation Commission, who has called on the UCA to rescind the "unfair"  resolution:

“At a time when Christians are beheaded, forcibly converted, expelled and persecuted in the Middle East and around the world, the Uniting Church in Australia has chosen to single out the only democracy in the ­region which provides a safe haven and freedom of worship for Christians.

This vote sends a very hurtful message to Australian Jews and foments an atmosphere of hostility."

 In other news, however ...

David Singer: Israel – European Union In State Of Disunion

Image: www.algemeiner.com

Here's the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.

He writes:

Hungary and Greece have broken ranks with the European Union in signalling they want nothing to do with the recently introduced EU labelling laws requiring Jewish products originating in Judea and Samaria (West Bank), East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights to have special labels and not be marked “made in Israel”.

These decisions follow hard on the heels of European Parliament delegation for relations with Israel chairman – Fulvio Martusciello – warning:

“The decision to label products was a mistake. Europe is loud about Israel, but quiet about 200 other conflicts around the world.” 

Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó announced Hungary’s decision:

"We do not support the decision to make a special mark on products coming from the West Bank or the Golan Heights. This step is inefficient and illogical. It would only hurt attempts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict." 

Greece’s decision was communicated by letter from its Foreign Minister to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after a visit by Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras to Israel – when extensive bilateral cooperation in economic matters, technology, science, education, trade, energy, and agriculture were concluded.

Meantime German Chancellor Angela Merkel is backing a recent German Foreign Ministry statement that the new EU labeling initiative:

“does not deal with a stigmatized warning decal, as many have presented… What Brussels wants is, however, only a clear designation of the origin of the products”.

This Foreign Ministry thinking was no doubt influenced by the illegal invasion of many hundreds of thousands of Muslim migrants into Germany and the huge economic and social problems faced by Germany in their resettlement.

Merkel has publicly opposed boycotts of Israel – which continues to receive preferential market access from Germany.

Will Germany’s Foreign Ministry now call for similar EU labelling of goods originating from other disputed regions around the world?

Surprisingly, EU Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini – following talks with EU foreign ministers on 14 December – chose to refer to two points that were not part of the agenda but were debated among those present:

“One is related to the Middle East peace process, especially after the adoption of the technical guidelines on indication of origin. We had an exchange of views in this respect with the ministers, and we commonly decided that it was important also for me to pass this message publicly that the Council and the European Union stay united on these technical guidelines on indication of origin, which is in no way a boycott and should in no way be interpreted as one”

Claiming to be united on these “technical guidelines” – despite their having been already rejected by Hungary and Greece – is surely deceptive and misleading.

Describing the labelling of Jewish products – but not Arab products – as “technical guidelines” is an insult to everyone’s intelligence.

They constitute clear “stigmatized warning decals”.

Mogherini continued:

“The second thing on which the Council was completely united is our continued engagement in the Middle East peace process and in broader bilateral relations with Israel. There is full unity and solidarity among member states and among European institutions on that.”

Mogherini is seriously mistaken if she thinks Israel will allow a clearly conflicted EU to remain part of the Quartet of Mideast peacemakers which also includes the UN, United States and Russia.

No amount of doublespeak will enable the EU to escape the charges that these labelling requirements:

1. Are racist and discriminate against Jews

2. Trample on Jewish vested legal rights to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem

Double standards and political hypocrisy will eventually bring even the most powerful down to earth.

In London, Israel-Haters Shout A Sour Slogan (video)

Here's a bunch of Israel-haters again, this time wearing festive gear, chanting a sour slogan against the Israeli Sabon shop in Covent Garden; at least on this occasion we are spared those alternative carols they were screeching unmelodiously last time we saw them.

Worry not; most of the Santas in the video were not part of the silly stunt.

Airhead Ashleigh (video)

Lots and lots and lots of people have seen this already, but I've only just caught up with it.

Another discussion on the same theme:

What The Hack?! Strange Chemistry with Fetid Waters

Chemi Shalev is US editor of that generally abominable newspaper (many will think "newspaper" an over-polite description) Ha'aretz, Israeli media outlet of choice for the BBC, the ABC, and Israel-demonisers everywhere.

On Twitter today Shalev gives an insight into why:

Here's a sample of reactions (among those also expressing distaste are well-known blogger Aussie Dave of Isreallycool fame and NGO Monitor's Professor Gerald Steinberg).

Chemi tries to claim the high moral ground:

Oy!

"Mistakes Are Not War Crimes": The truth about the IDF (video)

Nobody says it better than Colonel Richard Kemp.  And nobody is more qualified to do so.

A short, snappy, superb video in the Prager University series.

At Australia's National Students' Conference, Taunts of "Jew!" & "Ashkenazi Jew!"

I quote in full the media release of the Australasian Union of Jewish Students; the emphasis has been added by me:

Debate turns ugly at National Union of Students Conference

By Dean Sherr / December 10, 2015

A debate on “ethno cultural policy” at the National Union of Students (NUS) Conference on Wednesday nearly ended in violence after it was hijacked by an aggressive group of far-left student delegates.

The group had controversially put forward a motion that referred to Israel as “an apartheid state” and accused it of “ethnic cleansing”. It said that in the event of future hostilities between Israel and its neighbours, regardless of which side is at fault, “NUS will issue statements in solidarity with the Palestinian people” and “will take steps to enact, where practicable, a boycott of Israel”.

A conservative Palestinian student, a member of the Liberal club, was due to speak against the motion, but was prevented from doing so when some of the far-Left delegates stormed the stage, stole the microphone from his hand and moved a gagging motion against his right to speak. 

A number of NUS Delegates have also charged that proponents of the motion used gross racist language during the course of the melee.

“The supporters of the motion yelled the words ‘Jew’ and ‘Ashkenazi Jews’ as terms of abuse”, AUJS National Political Affairs Director, Julian Kowal said. “Their speech and behaviour was indistinguishable from that of the antisemitic fascist student unions of an earlier era.” 

“Overt Anti-Semitism could not be expressed in more simple terms than using the term “Jew” with the intention to defame or insult another individual.”

“AUJS is deeply concerned that the NUS conference is a space in which students feel comfortable to use “Jew” as an insult

According to Kowal, Jewish students have been harassed, abused and assaulted numerous times at several Australian campuses in recent years. He named the University of Sydney as one of the worst for Jewish students.

“We are simply not free to express our opinions if we support Israel, or even to wear clothing that identifies us as Jewish - some Jewish students have been abused, identifiable only by their religious head-covering”, he said.

“We report all assaults and incidents of harassment and intimidation, and the University authorities have admitted that they have a problem with racism and intolerance of so-called 'non-radical' views on campus, but they have done nothing to address this poisonous culture.

There is a growing feeling of isolation amongst Jewish students.

"This motion is just the tip of the iceberg”

 Kowal lashed the supporters of the motion as “people who cannot handle contradiction”. He accused them of “having a simplistic, reductionist mindset”.

“The fact that they had to resort to violent behaviour and overt racism, and censored a student from speaking in order to get their motion passed, shows that they are cowards who are afraid of the truth.

University authorities should not allow anybody, especially these fanatics, to behave as self-appointed censors and arbiters of ‘correct opinion’ on campus”.

(For an example of Israel-demonisation in an academic setting half a world away, see Edgar Davidson's post here)

David Singer: Israel Sheds PLO As Negotiating Partner

Here's the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.  Bibi Netanyahu's speech to the Sabon Forum, to which David refers, can be seen on video on my blog here

Writes David Singer:

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has concluded that completing successful negotiations with the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) on the allocation of territorial sovereignty in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), Gaza and East Jerusalem is a mission impossible to achieve.

Addressing the Saban Forum on 6 December, Netanyahu made his position clear and unequivocal:

“I have said and I continue to say it, that ultimately the only workable solution is not a unitary state, but a demilitarized Palestinian state that recognizes the Jewish state. That’s the solution. But the Palestinians have to recognize the Jewish state and they persistently refuse to do so. They refuse to recognize a nation-state for the Jewish people in any boundary. That was and remains the core of the conflict. Not this or that gesture or the absence of this or that gesture, but the inability or unwillingness of the Palestinian leadership to make the leap.”

Whilst the issue of a “demilitarized Palestinian State” is one possibly capable of being further negotiated – the issue of recognizing the Jewish State is definitely not.

Recognition of the right of Jewish self-determination in Palestine – whilst simultaneously recognizing the right of Arab self-determination in Syria, Lebanon and Mesopotamia (now Iraq) – has always been an issue with the Arabs – since these decisions were first made at the San Remo Conference in April 1920 establishing the Mandates for Palestine, Mesopotamia and Syria and Lebanon.

These decisions delivered to the Arabs 99.99 per cent of the lands won from the defeated Ottoman Empire in World War 1 whilst setting aside the remaining 0.01 per cent for the Jews.

95 years of bloody conflict between Jews and Arabs has ensued since then because the Arabs wanted – and still want – 100 per cent of the Ottoman Empire pie and have never been prepared to settle for 99.99 per cent.

Netanyahu points out where the Arab world now finds itself in 2015 because of such Arab irredentism:

 “And what we see is the old order established after the Ottoman Empire collapsing and militant Islam, either of the Shiites, Shiite hue led by Iran, or the Sunni hue, led by ISIS, rushing in to fill the void.”

The PLO has never accepted the San Remo carve up of the Ottoman Empire between Jews and Arabs – as its current Charter declares:

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

The PLO’s rejection of the right of Jews to have one State whilst the Arabs presently have 22 States is also virulently expressed in the PLO Charter:

 “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.”

The PLO leader Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) has no intention of changing this racist and utterly offensive position – as Netanyahu points out:

 'You got a hint of that the other day when Abu Mazen spoke about the “occupation of Palestinian lands for the last 67 years.  Did you hear that? Occupation of Palestinian lands? For the last 67 years?   

Sixty-seven years ago was 1948. That’s when the State of Israel was established. Does Abu Mazen mean that Tel Aviv is occupied Palestinian territory? Or Haifa? Or Beer Sheba?'

The demise of the PLO as Israel’s negotiating partner is long overdue.

President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry must urgently move to fill this negotiating void by replacing the PLO with Israel’s Arab partners in two long-standing signed peace agreements – Jordan and Egypt.

The Jewish-Arab conflict can still be peacefully resolved with the right partners sitting at the negotiating table.

Again, The BBC Shows Its Bias & Its Bankruptcy

Donnison makes light of real concerns

What a wretched leftist propaganda machine the BBC is. 

Notice how it has reported the not unreasonable view of former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott that Islam needs a reform movement.

Mr Abbott writes, inter alia, in the Sydney Daily Telegraph and sister papers today:

'Round  the world, terrorists screaming out Allah-u-Akbar are killing decent people going about their daily lives....

Dealing with terrorism and the Islamist fanaticism that inspires it is the great challenge of our time.

Obviously there needs to be a very strong security response at home and abroad....

The security response is necessary but it’s not sufficient. There also needs to be a concerted “hearts and minds” campaign against the versions of Islam that make excuses for terrorists.

Although most Muslims utterly reject terrorism, some are all too ready to justify “death to the infidel”....

Demonising Islam generally or all Muslims could bring on the “clash of civilisations” that academic Samuel Huntington feared two decades back and make “Islam’s bloody borders” even more dangerous. But we can’t remain in denial about the massive problem within Islam.

Islam never had its own version of the Reformation and the Enlightenment or a consequent acceptance of pluralism and the separation of church and state.

Fortunately there are numerous Muslim leaders who think their faith needs to modernise from the kill-or-be-killed milieu of the Prophet Mohammed.

It’s also time Australians stopped being apologetic about the values that have made our country as free, fair and prosperous as any on Earth....

Islam needs to delegitimise the urge to “behead all those who insult the Prophet” but only Muslims can do this. That’s why everyone interested in a safer world should be reaching out to “live and let live” Muslims and encouraging them to reclaim their faith from the zealots.

In Australia that means talking to decent people who happen to be Muslim as well as to “official” Muslims inclined to see “Islamophobia” in any criticism....

It’s also time Australians stopped being apologetic about the values that have made our country as free, fair and prosperous as any on Earth.

Where hate preaching is not illegal it should at least be thoroughly answered point-by-point with a very robust defence of human rights and responsibilities.

It’s not culturally insensitive to demand loyalty to Australia and respect for Western civilisation. Cultures are not all equal. We should be ready to proclaim the clear superiority of our culture to one that justifies killing people in the name of God.'

Not offensive or over-the-top, is it?  At least, not to rational people.

But look at the BBC's report. That item is less a report on what Mr Abbott has said as what lefty and Muslim critics have declared in response to what he has said.  It's reminiscent of BBC reports on and from the Middle East, when the Israeli case ("Israel says") is put last, after the views of Palestinian Arab spokespeople and any UN official/leftwing activist who might happen to be on hand.

Then there are the snide, derogatory references to Mr Abbott's "letter" (in fact, it's an op-ed article) having appeared  "in News Corps tabloids" (that's the Murdoch stable, which also happens to carry the syndicated column of Australia's most-read columnist, the conservative Andrew Bolt, who is of course anathema to the Left, for lots of reasons including his pro-Israel stance.)

"Tabloids".  That's a way of saying that the newspapers in question are populist pieces of trash fit only to wrap fish 'n chips, not the highbrow newspapers (The Guardian, Ha'aretz, the Israel-bashing Fairfax press) that Al Beeb reporters and intellectuals of the left choose as their daily fare.  (Yes, I'm being sarcastic when I say "intellectuals"; after all, that term hardly describes the Bowens and the Donnisons and the Knells, does it?)

Note, too, the gratuitous reference to Mr Abbott having once been intended for the Roman Catholic priesthood.  The BBC, like its Aussie counterpart the ABC, which it resembles so much in pet causes and ideology, rarely wastes an opportunity to depict the Roman Catholic Church in a bad light (allegations of priests behaving badly are, as it were, a godsend to it).  I suspect that the gratuitous reference to Mr Abbott's religion is a snide way of implying that he's some kind of Christian fanatic and that when it comes to having a go at Islam, well, he would, wouldn't he? For of course religion is there to be poked fun at by the Left, unless that religion is, well, the one that needs reforming.

There's no byline given for the report, but presumably it's by the BBC's snide and snotty Jon Donnison, who when he can be bothered to tear himself away from tweeting schoolboyish semi-smut and other trivia, does occasionally report from the Land Down Under, though rarely with any degree of profundity.  He seems to have left his reporting hat in the West Bank or Gaza, when all is said and done, and coming to the Antipodes is all a bit of a (no pun intended) come down.  At least, that's how his characteristically superficial reports strike me.

How utterly loathsome, too, is Australia's embattled Opposition leader Bill Shorten in implying that Islam is above criticism.  Why, in its attitude to women alone it proves itself culturally inferior to and at odds with Western values.

Bill should look at this video, of a secular Iranian woman being disrespectfully treated at a talk she is giving at a constituent college of London University, to see just how contemptuous of women Western Islamists are.

Better still, he and his fellow Lefties (those decrying Abbott's article is Greens leader Richard Di Natale) should read Professor Phyllis Chesler's latest article here

How desperately Shorten, who's doing very badly in opinion polls, must need the "Muslim vote".

How utterly hypocritical the Greens are.

But Malcolm Turnbull's not much better.

Incidentally, concerning Australian politicians and Islam, readers may be interested in my latest Elder of Ziyon article (which illuminates the reference in the image above to the Mufti) here

The Menace of Muslim Migration (video)

"Boy, are we ever being taken in!"

So says Daniel Greenfield in this video, regarding the masses from the Middle East now being "taken in".

He's talking mainly about America.  But his words are applicable to the West in general.

Yes, as he says, "Even Sweden is beginning to beg for mercy" ... "In the UK, one in three Muslims is under 15" ... "The Muslim world has a large disposable young male population."

Migration has spelled the doom of past civilisations ...

Remember the tale of Hengist and Horsa?

Meanwhile, regarding Donald Trump's controversial proposal: