Eretz Israel is our unforgettable historic homeland...The Jews who will it shall achieve their State...And whatever we attempt there for our own benefit will redound mightily and beneficially to the good of all mankind. (Theodor Herzl, DerJudenstaat, 1896)

We offer peace and amity to all the neighbouring states and their peoples, and invite them to cooperate with the independent Jewish nation for the common good of all. The State of Israel is ready to contribute its full share to the peaceful progress and development of the Middle East.
(From Proclamation of the State of Israel, 5 Iyar 5708; 14 May 1948)

With a liberal democratic political system operating under the rule of law, a flourishing market economy producing technological innovation to the benefit of the wider world, and a population as educated and cultured as anywhere in Europe or North America, Israel is a normal Western country with a right to be treated as such in the community of nations.... For the global jihad, Israel may be the first objective. But it will not be the last. (Friends of Israel Initiative)

Thursday 30 March 2017

David Singer: Israel Offers Trump Opportunity for Republican-Democrat Reconciliation

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

He writes:

No amount of Trump tweeting or political posturing can mask the damage done to President Trump’s legendary deal-making ability following his failure to convince all Republican Party members in the House of Representatives to vote for the repeal of Obamacare and its replacement with Trumpcare.

Trump fared little better when the Senate confirmed Trump’s nominee for US Ambassador to Israel – David Friedman – by 52 votes to 46.

Only two Democratic senators – Bob Menendez of New Jersey and Joe Manchin of West Virginia – supported Trump’s choice.

Bitter partisan Democrat-Republican battlelines – fuelled by a hostile media publishing allegedly-claimed criminal leaks following Trump’s unanticipated electoral victory – increasingly threaten to undermine Trump’s election promises to “drain the swamp” and “make America great again”.

Israel, however, represents a real opportunity for Trump to unite Congress and repair the fractured Republican-Democrat relationship if Trump respects these following three bipartisan decisions:
1. Congress’s overwhelming vote by 502 votes to 12: 
Endorsing the written commitments made by President Bush to Israel’s Prime Minister Sharon on 14 April 2004 to encourage Israel’s unilateral disengagement from Gaza and part of the West Bank and give the Bush-Quartet Roadmap (“Roadmap”) every chance of ending a conflict that had raged unresolved for 85 years.
Bush made the following commitments to Israel:
(i) To prevent any attempt by anyone to impose any plan other than the Roadmap.
(ii) Acknowledged that Israel must have secure and recognized borders, which should emerge from negotiations between Israel and the PLO in accordance with UNSC Resolutions 242 and 338.
(iii) Agreed in light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli populations centers, that it was unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations would be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949
(iv) That the United States was strongly committed to Israel's security and well-being as a Jewish state.
2. Congress’s resolution on 5 January 2017 by a vote of 342-80:
“that the passage of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 undermined the long-standing position of the United States to oppose and veto United Nations Security Council resolutions that seek to impose solutions to final status issues, or are one-sided and anti- Israel, reversing decades of bipartisan agreement.”
3. The Senate’s vote 96-4 on 24 January 2017:
 Confirming South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley as ambassador to the United Nations.
 During her confirmation hearing Haley told the Senate:
“Nowhere has the UN's failure been more consistent and more outrageous than it is -- than its bias against our close ally Israel. And the General Assembly session just completed, the UN adopted 20 resolutions against Israel. And only six targeting the rest of the world's countries combined. In the past ten years, the human rights council has passed 62 resolutions condemning the reasonable actions Israel takes to defend its security. Meanwhile, the world's worst human rights abusers in Syria, Iran, and North Korea, received far fewer condemnations. This cannot continue.”
 In the two months since her appointment Haley has:
(i) Blocked the appointment of former Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad as the UN’s special representative for Libya.
(ii) Rebuked the UN’s Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia for publishing a report characterizing Israel as an “apartheid state” – pressuring its leadership to retract the document and Commission head Rima Khalaf to resign days later.
Trump’s yet to be announced policy on resolving the Jewish-Arab conflict needs to be based on these three bipartisan massive-majority decisions – guaranteeing that Congress will overwhelmingly endorse Trump’s detailed peace-making proposals when finally formulated for Congress ratification.

Unity is strength – division is weakness.

Wednesday 29 March 2017

A Factual Script for Guru Gere (videos)

While cameras roll an ageing Israel-bashing luvvie with the chutzpah to say that he's an honorary Jew because he lives in New York takes a stroll in Hebron, one of the ancient holy cities of Judaism, and takes it upon himself to solve the Arab-Israel dispute by prescribing sacrifices only from Israel, naturellement.

  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZ2YpRQSyvk

Not a word, of course, about the long and dismal record of Arab rejectionism, as told well in this Speedy Media video (an oldie but a goody):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FP68DcHu4A

 To quote David Singer here:
"Richard Gere must have lapped up all the media attention during his visit to Israel and especially Hebron. He has little conception of the Jewish-Arab conflict extending over the last 100 years and the refusal of the Arabs to accept any entitlement of the Jews to have their own State despite the decisions of the League of Nations and the United Nations.
Wonder if Breaking the Silence told him of the 1929 massacre of the Jewish community in Hebron and why Jews have every legal right to settle in Hebron under article 6 of the Mandate for Palestine.
The publicity he has received must however seem to him a welcome relief masking any questions from the media concerning his failure to achieve anything in Tibet for the last 35 years....
He should go back to America and take note that the Congress voted 502 votes to 12 in 2004 confirming that Israel must be recognised as the Jewish State by the PLO and that Israel could not be expected to withdraw to the 1949 armistice lines in any peace agreement."
And to quote a member of the Schneerson family, who experienced the Arab Riots of 1929 in Hebron, where her parents ran a dairy:
‘I remember that I went up in the afternoon on the Friday [23 August] to serve the milk; I used to go on the road to Jerusalem on the main highway; nothing happened when I was walking, but when I was walking back I saw these little groups ... of about ten Arabs here and there, talking. And as I was nearing home, one of them threw a stone at me and hit me in the cheek, and of course I started screaming and ran to the house, and as I ran up the stairs my father opened the door, dragged me in and shut the door again quickly. “We are leaving, we are going to our [i.e. her] grandparents,” he said, which was only down the road actually...
We took few belongings; we didn’t have time.... [M]y father said we were going to the hotel, and sure enough we went through the back way and ran through the different yards, and got to the hotel and there were already different people there. There was an elderly couple that came on holidays ... and the doctor was upstairs, he was staying there; and a few of our friends came and then later I found out there were 33 souls staying there, my aunties and Uncle Sholem and his wife, and so on, and some friends. I’ll never forget, we locked all the doors, and they said we would be safer upstairs, so we all walked upstairs ...
There we were, Esther [her sister] and I, standing at this big window, upstairs in the hotel, and when we were looking out to another house not very far at all, and it was called the Yeshiva School... where Orthodox young men were learning the Torah ... that’s the house where they stayed, where they lived.
And ... we could see the Arabs – they had hardly any guns but there were these long swords – screaming “Kill the Jews, kill the Jews” in Arabic.
And first they opened the doors, and a few minutes later they came out and ... we could see the blood ... on those swords ... Anyway, the next thing, all of a sudden, the Arab who was the owner of the hotel – my grandparents were just running it, of course – and this wonderful man, this Arab, who was in his vineyard with his two wives ... heard apparently of the massacre that was going on, and came running up with his wives ... and said: “Come on, you are not safe here. Come down quickly.” He took us down the back steps to his home. It was one big room and off it were the bedrooms (and whatever other rooms), but we, all 33 of us, went into this room and sat down; and he locked the doors and put his two wives on guard outside the door...
We stayed there a day and a night, and then at one time the Arabs kept knocking and the women would say: “There are no Jewish people here ... just our friends who are so afraid of you, you mustn’t do it.” They went away, lucky us! ...
[M]y auntie had a baby, and she had her hand over the baby’s mouth because the baby was just starting to cry, and there were these Arabs standing outside.... You could smell the fear! ... Then ... this voice from outside near the school shouted “Help! Help!” It was our cousin; Slonim was his name. My father jumped up and he was running towards the door and the uncles got up and said to father: “Where do you think you’re going?” He said: “I’m going to help ... they’re killing him.” They said: “You can’t do anything.” It was a really shocking moment.
... [Eliezer Dan] Slonim was the bank manager [the local branch of the Anglo-Palestine Bank], and he had all these people working for him, and amongst them was a friend of his, an Arab, a great friend of his, working there with him. And these Arabs were running up the steps to his home and he came up and saw his friend and he said: “Thank G-d it’s you. Now I feel safe.” And the fellow took a gun and shot him.
Then the others ran in and they stuck a sword down his wife’s throat. The couple had two boys, so they killed one of them, but the other one miraculously survived. They had a neighbour, a very big fat woman, wearing these big, big clothes that were hanging down, and she lay down on top of the other child. His name was Binyamin Slonim, and he is still alive today, somewhere in Israel...
These Arabs went around and killed and killed and massacred. Our baker, our poor darling baker; they lit the primus stove, and they put his head on it, and another was found upside down in the toilet. The toilet was just a hole in the ground; and they just did atrocious things....
[W]e saw bodies lying in different parts of the road. We saw bodies lying on the ground and being picked up, and when we came to the big square in front of the police station, there were so many dead lying around and so many people sitting next to them howling, crying, moaning, holding their heads. It was a terrible picture: there were bodies and blood everywhere, and one poor woman, whose husband was on a stretcher, was on her knees and her dress was all red with blood and she was crying for her husband and the scene was just absolutely shocking.’
See here and here and here

In common with the rest of the ignorant anti-Israel "intelligentsia" Mr Gere might learn something too from David Brog, Executive Director of the Maccabee Task Force, in this lucid lecture for Prager University that even a five-year-old might be expected to comprehend:

 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76NytvQAIs0

In the uploader's words:
Why don't the Palestinians have their own country? Is it the fault of Israel? Of the Palestinians? Of both parties? David Brog ...shares the surprising answers.
Donate today to PragerU: http://l.prageru.com/2eB2p0h
Read David Brog's book, "Reclaiming Israel's History". http://l.prageru.com/2nmj8e

Ratbags versus Brexit (video)

How typical of the ratbag/fascist/totalitarian Left not to accept the results of a democratic referendum which delivered a verdict opposed to their views!  A march in London a few days ago:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9x9q7HPhNY

I don't think it takes a strong imagination to guess the views of many if not most of these rowdy marchers towards the Zionist Entity

(An Alex Seymour video)

Monday 27 March 2017

"If Only Adolf Hitler Had Gotten the Rothschilds": Lappin' in antisemitism

Alan Lappin; image credtit: BorderMail.com.au
On 26 May last year, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) adopted a working non-legally binding definition of antisemitism:
“Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.” 
It went on to explain that the ancient hatred includes the following modern manifestations:
"Calling for, aiding, or justifying the killing or harming of Jews in the name of a radical ideology or an extremist view of religion. 
Making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective — such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions. 
Accusing Jews as a people of being responsible for real or imagined wrongdoing committed by a single Jewish person or group, or even for acts committed by non-Jews. 
Denying the fact, scope, mechanisms (e.g. gas chambers) or intentionality of the genocide of the Jewish people at the hands of National Socialist Germany and its supporters and accomplices during World War II (the Holocaust). 
Accusing the Jews as a people, or Israel as a state, of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust. Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations. 
Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor. 
Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation. 
Using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (e.g., claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis. 
Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis. Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel."
 And so on.

On 25 April this year, at its Plenary Assembly, the World Jewish Congress (WJC) will present its full report and detailed report concerning antisemitism on social media during 2016, based on the 
IHRA’s definition.

In the meantime, stressing that posts criticizing Israel or Israel’s activities were not counted in the study, it has summarised its findings thus, :
'The World Jewish Congress has found that more than 382,000 antisemitic posts were posted to social media platforms over the course of 2016 – an average of more than 43.6 posts per hour, or one post every 83 seconds.
The WJC survey, conducted by the Israeli monitoring firm Vigo Social Intelligence, also determined that an overwhelming 63 percent of all antisemitic content online can be found on Twitter.
“We knew that antisemitism online was on the rise, but the numbers revealed in this report give us concrete data as to how alarming the situation really is,” World Jewish Congress CEO and Executive Vice President Robert R. Singer said. “We hope this serves as a wake-up call to all internet forums to maintain moral standards, rid themselves of offensive content, and make the digital world a safer place for all.”
The WJC research analyzed tens of millions of posts in 20 languages on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, blogs and other forums. After Twitter, the highest number of antisemitic posts online can be found on blogs, at 16 percent. Eleven percent of antisemitic content online was posted to Facebook, followed by Instagram with 6 percent, YouTube with 2 percent, and 2 percent on other forums...
The corresponding posts were identified through a database of searchable word phrases and terms online, then translated into leading languages and scanned through the internet. A representative sample was read and codified by analysts to refine searches and deepen qualitative analysis. A total of 7,600 posts were read in different languages, indicating a representative sample of 2 percent of the total discourse included in the analysis.
Last year I drew attention to some of the eyebrow raising posts of an aspiring Australian federal politician named Alan Lappin.

I don't know whether the WJC counted any of his posts in its study pertaining to 2016, but the bloke  from Boorhaman North, near Wangaratta, who had his eye on the seat of Indi in the last election, is still at it this year, with such posts as these:







As aspiring pollies go, Alan Lappin is small fry indeed.

But Boorhaman.

What a bonza name for the habitat of an antisemite!

Geddit?

Sunday 26 March 2017

More Anti-Jewish Hate Speech in a Montreal Mosque (video)

Another antisemitic Olde Tyme preacher in a Montreal pulpit, a different one from this one.  This  guy's a Jordanian, speaking in December:


To quote the uploader, B'nai Brith Canada:
On March 20, 2017, B'nai Brith Canada filed a complaint with Montreal police regarding a sermon made by Sheikh Muhammad bin Musa Al Nasr at the Dar al-Arqam mosque in Montreal. In the sermon, recited on Dec. 23, 2016, he described Jews as “the most evil of mankind” and “human demons,” and quoted a passage from the hadith that calls for killing Jews.
If you agree that this is actionable hate speech, and that Canada must begin to take threats directed at the Jewish community seriously, please sign our petition at www.bnaibrith.ca/hate_crimes_canada
 A detailed report here

Saturday 25 March 2017

The Chamber Goes Silent (video)

Splendid stuff from UN Watch's Hillel Neuer in the UN Human Rights Council on 20 March in response to the slanderous denunciation of Israel by the usual suspects:
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35eEljsSQfc

Inter alia:
 Mr. President, let me begin by putting the following on the record: Everything we just heard — from the world’s worst abusers of human rights, of women’s rights, of freedom of religion, of the press, of assembly, of speech — is absolutely false; and, indeed, Orwellian.

Today’s report does not consider Israelis to be deserving of human rights — consistent with the approach of this council, where today’s notorious agenda item against Israel completely ignores their human rights.

Over the weekend, President Abbas announced he was giving his highest medal to Rima Khalaf, who resigned from the Economic and Social Commission of Western Asia, a Beirut-based UN agency of 18 Arab states, after Secretary General Guterres rightly instructed her to remove an absurd report which accused Israel of “apartheid.”

Mr. President, why is Mr. Abbas celebrating a report written by the notorious Richard Falk, after his own Palestinian Mission here, tried in 2010, to remove Mr. Falk on the basis that he was “a partisan of Hamas,” as we know from WikiLeaks?


The accusation against Israel is absurd. Israel’s 1.5 million Arabs…

[Interruption with objections by Palestinians, Egypt, and Pakistan.]

Israel’s 1.5 million Arabs, whatever challenges they face, enjoy full rights to vote and to be elected in the Knesset, they work as doctors and lawyers, they serve on the Supreme Court.

Now I’d like to ask the members of that commission, that commissioned that report, the Arab states from which we just heard. Egypt, Iraq, and the others:

How many Jews live in your countries? How many Jews live in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco?

Once upon a time, the Middle East was full of Jews.

Algeria had 140,000 Jews. Algeria, where are your Jews?

Egypt used to have 75,000 Jews. Where are your Jews?

Syria, you had tens of thousands of Jews. Where are your Jews?

Iraq, you had over 135,000 Jews. Where are your Jews?

Mr. President, where is the apartheid?

Why is there a U.N. commission on the Middle East that does not include Israel? From the 1960s and the ‘70s they refuse to include Israel. Where is the apartheid, Mr. President?

Mr. President, why are we meeting today on an agenda item singling out only one state, the Jewish state, for targeting.

Where is the apartheid, Mr. President?
UNHRC chamber goes silent.
Full transcript here

Meanwhile, the odious fork-tongued author of the report in question, who's been defaming Israel in Edinburgh and London, to the exultation of the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign and other Israel-haters, whines about his richly-deserved come-uppance:

To read Falk's whine click here


Thursday 23 March 2017

David Singer: Trump Can Broker Israel-Jordan Deal but No Israel-PLO Agreement

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

He writes:

President Trump’s Special Representative for International Negotiations – Jason Greenblatt – has returned from his wide-ranging meetings in Jerusalem, Ramallah, Amman and Jericho with zero prospects of Trump brokering a deal between Israel and the PLO.

However Greenblatt’s belief in the pivotal role Jordan can play in resolving the 100 years old Jewish-Arab conflict was apparent in his tweet after meeting Jordan’s King Abdullah II:
“We agree on the need for peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Jordan an important ally in this effort.”
According to the Jordan Times:
"During the meeting, held at Al Husseiniya Palace, His Majesty stressed the US role in ending the stalemate in the Palestinian-Israeli peace process and reviving negotiations that should lead to a just and comprehensive solution to the conflict, based on the two-state formula.He asserted that reaching a just deal of a comprehensive peace that includes establishing a Palestinian state will reflect on efforts to achieve peace, security and stability in the region.” 
King Abdullah is whistling in the wind in believing another Arab state could still be established – in addition to Jordan – in the territory comprised in the Mandate for Palestine where Israel presently exercises sovereignty in 17 per cent and Jordan 77 per cent – whilst sovereignty remains undetermined in the last 6 per cent – the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) and Gaza.

Negotiations between Israel and the PLO to create that second Arab State have extended over the last 24 years and been dormant since April 2014.

Those negotiations have failed because Israel and the PLO have been unable to resolve core demands despite two offers having been made by Israel in 2000/2001 and 2008 to cede its claims in over 90 per cent of the West Bank. Israel’s unmet demands are that:
1. The PLO recognise Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people
2. The major Jewish settlement blocs in Judea and Samaria be incorporated into the boundaries of Israel
3. Israel retains security control over the Jordan Valley
4. Jerusalem remains the eternal undivided capital of Israel
5. Any such State be demilitarized
The PLO’s unmet demands are that:
1. The Palestinian State be granted sovereignty over all of the territory of the West Bank with its capital being located in East Jerusalem.
2. All Jewish settlements located in the West Bank and East Jerusalem be dismantled and their inhabitants be removed.
3. Palestinian Arab refugees who fled the 1948 Arab invasion of Western Palestine be allowed to return and settle in Israel.
Trumps’s ability to cut a deal in the face of these irreconcilable differences is severely hampered by the written commitments made to Israel’s Prime Minister Sharon by President Bush on 14 April 2004 and overwhelmingly endorsed by the US House of Representatives by 407:9 and Senate 95:3.

Those commitments – given to Israel to secure Israel’s total withdrawal from Gaza and four Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria – back Israel’s above demands in any negotiations with the PLO.It seems inconceivable that Trump – the master deal-maker – would consider reneging on the Bush- Congress-Sharon deal.

If he did, Israel would not resume negotiations with the PLO.

If he doesn’t, the PLO would not resume negotiations with Israel.

If Trump wants to do a deal, he needs Jordan to come to the party and enter into direct negotiations with Israel to allocate sovereignty in the West Bank between Jordan and Israel – virtually completing the original two-state formula envisaged in 1922 by Article 25 of the League of Nations Mandate.

Greenblatt’s meeting with King Abdullah is a possible pointer to getting such negotiations underway.

Trump’s undoubted brokering skills can ensure such negotiations happen.

Tuesday 21 March 2017

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose ...

"The more things change, the more they stay the same."

So observed the French wit Alphonse Karr in 1849.

Looking through a newspaper collection recently for something entirely unrelated to the Middle East, I spotted the following, and thought of that phrase, though on second thoughts maybe it's not so apt, given that certain trends in history roll on and gain momentum.

Edinburgh Evening News, 22 March 1902:


Wanatah [Indiana] Mirror, 25 January 1912:


Ibid.  Opening paragraphs in close-up:


Bedford [UK] Daily Mail, 4 June 1912 (is this what drives Viktor Orban?):


The Globe [UK], 28 November 1913):


Daily Mirror [UK], 2 June 1914


Cambridge [UK] Independent Press, 10 December 1915:


I'm sure there are a lot more where those came from.
 
Meanwhile, in the Middle East some things have stayed the same since the 7th century, as this fine article observes:
True peace requires addressing the deep sources of the conflict. Those lay with the Arab and Muslim reaction to the return of the Jewish people to powerful sovereignty in their ancient homeland. As far as Muslim theology and Arab practice were concerned, the Jews were non-believers, only to be tolerated, never as equals. They should have never been allowed to undermine Muslim rule over the lands, which the Jews claimed as their homeland, but the Arabs viewed as exclusively theirs since conquering them in the seventh century.
The return of the Jewish people to restored sovereignty in their ancient homeland, required Arabs and Muslims to accept that a people, whom they have for centuries treated as inferiors, worthy of contempt, were now claiming equality and exercising power in their midst.
This historical “Chutzpah” is what drove the Arab League to violently reject any kind of plan that would grant the Jewish people equal sovereignty over any part of “Muslim land”​, free from their control. This unnatural historical development, in Arab eyes, led Arab governments to take revenge and forcefully expel hundreds of thousands of Jews, living in their midst, often in communities predating the birth of Islam, just after the establishment of the State of Israel.
It is also the reason why Arab states kept the Arabs who were displaced during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war and their millions of descendants, ​ as perpetual “refugees” – to deprive the Jewish state of legitimacy and peace.  It is the reason that even after losing repeated military wars against the State of Israel, Arab countries have continued their diplomatic and economic war against it to this day. Even Jordan and Egypt, that have signed nominal peace agreements with Israel, have more of a ‘mutual non-attack’ agreements, rather than genuine peace.
The animosity to the concept of the Jewish sovereignty in the Arab Middle East is simply too big. This attitude towards the Jewish state is an Arab – and Muslim – issue, and not only a Palestinian one. The Palestinians have been at the forefront of this Arab and Muslim intolerance, but they are not its creators. They are the thin end of the wedge by which the Arab and Muslim world wages its war against a sovereign Jewish people.
If the word peace is ever to truly describe the situation between Israel and its neighbors, it requires the Arab and Muslim world to address the roots of their intolerance. It requires them to accept the Jews as their equals and as an indigenous people who have come home. This was always too large a task to be undertaken by the Palestinians. Only Arabs and Muslims together can legitimize a different theological interpretation of the Jewish presence in their midst: no longer inferiors and no longer foreigners. In doing so, they can enable and legitimize practical solutions in Jerusalem that accept the centrality of the city to the Jewish people, and to the manufactured problem of the “refugees”, by finally rehabilitating them and absorbing them as fellow Arabs...."
And as the Palestinian envoy to Iran, Salah Zawawi, reminds us in a recent interview on Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV:
"Our war is not only with this Zionist enemy. We are fighting a 100-year-old Western enterprise, which is ongoing. This enterprise does not target a part of Palestine, or even Palestine in its entirety. Its goal is to establish the Greater Israel, which would control disintegrated Arab and Islamic countries, and indeed, this is happening today in our Islamic world. ...This way, our enemy along with its defenders and masters, would complete their plan to turn us into servants, if not slaves, in this region, and to plunder our resources.
When they talk about the signing of the nuclear agreement and whatever, they are truly terrified. If Iran produces a nuclear bomb - and I pray to Allah that Iran will produce 1,000 nuclear bombs - it will not be directed against any Arab or Islamic country. It will be used to defend, at the very least, the Islamic republic and its principles."
Moreover, to quote a commenter on this article

Commenter:
"I have degrees in Middle Eastern Studies and Arabic. I've spent more time than I care to recall studying Islam and its adherents. I've lectured Army and DIA personnel on Salafist terrorism.
Islam has never, ever been a 'byword for benign enlightenment.' It has always, from its triumph at Yathrib, been a religion of oppression, slavery, and war. That reformers occasionally exist does not rescue the faith from the weight of its history. And note that the reformers always fail.
Reason #1: Reform is bid'a (innovation), and bid'a is heresy, and willing heresy is apostasy, and Muslim apostates are put to death."
A commenter in response:
'Excellent post but, "And note that the reformers always fail." is not true. I think what you mean is that the peaceful ones always fail, which is true. When Islam was pacified by the influence and strength of Western culture it was denatured and mutated into something quite different. Now the reformists are trying to purge the Munafiqun (the hypocrites) from their community and purify the faith into one strong, tight fist with which to smash the infidels into submission... just as Abu Bakr (The Sword of Allah) did during the Apostasy Wars. Islam goes through these undulating waves of dilution (under the influence of kaffir civilisations) and then purification, by reformists trying to return to the original source material found in the Hadith and Quran; the terrorist organisations are simply the peak of the iceberg in a much larger movement in the Islamic world.
Sadly, the reformists are winning.'
Original Commenter:
"I don't disagree, but Khālid ibn al-Walīd was called Sword of Allah, not Abu Bakr."

Sunday 19 March 2017

Milady's Cobber Down Under

I saw this observation by David Collier


and (although not directly related to the subject of the Beyond the Great Divide Post  to which David links) I thought of this, by a friend, from their mutual student days, of Baroness Tonge.

From London, retired, and resident in Western Australia, this son of Jewish parents writes:


Mr Garcia-Webb is good at a phrase, and in retirement he authors "social fiction," fiction as a vehicle for social commentary, which often in his  case constitutes propaganda against Israel, sometimes narrated by imaginary Palestinians.  Not surprisingly,  the baroness has left comments appreciative of his work.

Examples of his oeuvre:

Here (written in 2015):
No one aged less than 67 years has lived in peace in Gaza
“What does it mean, to live in peace?” Jala had asked that question innumerable times, starting when she was only only three. “Perhaps you will understand when you are older,” her loving parents had explained....
 Here (written the same year):
 "....It is essential, I have decided, to allow them to think they are winning. To be cocky, or to spit in their eye leads to even worse torture. If they are annoyed, they torture prisoners to death. You may have read of them. They hang themselves. Or die from a mysterious illness despite the very best Israeli medical care....
Insha’Allah"
 Here (likewise):
"Had I ever thought, really thought, considered in depth, agonized, sat on dilemma’s piercing horns, what single thing I wanted most of all in life? Health, wealth, better eyesight or hearing, less pain, to be young again, happiness, improved memory. Or more broadly, an end to world hunger, climate change, war, famine. More narrow the overthrow of the 1%, an end to occupation of Palestine, the collapse of US hegemony, a world without politicians exploiting pseudo-terrorism controlling every day to day thought and action. Democracy. Peace. Death"
Here, 2015 again (the narrator is female):
 '....In January 2012, the national Union of Israeli Students became a full time partner in the government controlled spread of Israeli propaganda. Student were to be paid $2,000 to spend five hours a week spreading pro-Israeli propaganda online. Propaganda is rather an elastic term. They were also paid to be internet trolls. I had been labelled an anti-Semite many times by then. Initially my response was to laugh. Did they not realise that deliberately and falsely labelling a person as an anti-Semite actually denigrated what it was to be Jewish? Sometimes the attacks were simply name calling. On other occasions they threatened bodily harm. It got worse whenever Israel’s attacks on Palestinians got worse, since that would normally be an occasion for me to write an article on the subject. Hate mail really poured in during the atrocities of Operation Protective Edge in the Gaza summer of 2014. For the first time I began to take the hate mail seriously. Sometimes I found myself using reflections in shop windows to check if anyone was following me. Sometimes I awoke suddenly at night trembling at a sound I thought I had heard.
 Then came the elections in Israel. Netanyahu was returned but with a diminished power base. As he manoeuvered to make a government he descended further into what I had for some time labelled as a psychopathic state. The key to what happened next lay in the revelations to the ordinary public that the US, the UK and Israel has worked together to turn the initial student uprising in Syria into a war that would kill over 200,000, injure over a million and displace 7.6 million people. Even worse, if that were possible, Israel funded ISIS at the same time as the US and others claimed to be attacking it. I wrote a number of articles on this theme.
 The shifting levels of darkness jolted and a clear patch opened to revel a conversation between two men. One I somehow knew was from the Mossad. The other was unidentifiable, but spoke with an Australian accent....
 The first time they detained me a car pulled up, two men jumped out, put a sack over my head and manhandled me into the back of the car. I felt a needle in my thigh and woke up in a dark cell. The interrogation that followed was so low key that it should have been laughable. They wanted me to confess to being a terrorist but obviously had no evidence at all. They released me in the backstreets of Perth in the small hours of the morning. When I got back to my flat, I found it trashed. My clothes were everywhere, milk and broken eggs covered the kitchen floor, plates and glasses had been thrown against the walls. Written across the bathroom mirror in red lipstick were the words. “Remember bitch, you can’t tell anyone or it’s 5 years jail”.
 It happened again about a week later. This time the interrogation was tougher. When I got home I found that the flat had been trashed again. The fourth time it happened was two days before I died. I woke up in the small hours again wondering what the noise had been. I reached for the bedside light an turned it on. There were two men in the room. “Come on bitch, it’s time for another car ride.” I screamed and felt the familiar needle in the thigh....
 After a while the door opened. A hand reached in and grabbed my hair and pulled me out of the room, the floor smeared with blood as the rough concrete did its job. A hand reached between my thighs. I looked him in the eye. “Later.” He smiled and frogmarched my down the corridor to another room.
 This was the same room they always used for interrogations. But there was no desk. I was strapped down onto a slab and the torture began in earnest. In the darkness the pain returned in crippling waves. I tried to scream but there was no sound. Just pain, waves and waves of pain....'
 Here, written in 2016 but set sometime in the near future:
"....Overseas, things were a little more complex. Israel now belonged to the right wing Zionists. There were precious few Palestinians alive in the West Bank. Most had been forcibly transferred to the Gaza ghetto where they hovered on the brink of starvation if not extinction. Sufficient food and electricity was allowed for them to stay alive, but not for them to prosper let alone mount a serious revolt. Any spark of resistance was met with Lockheed F-35 fighter jets dropping DIME weapons and cluster bombs. Both the jets and the weapons were paid for by US tax payers; Israel had long since become the major recipient of US overseas aid.
The US propaganda media, which was most of the media, described it as the successful implementation of a two state policy and praised the Administration for helping Israel solve the Palestinian problem..."
The leftwing Mr Garcia-Webb is also a  presence on social media.
Here's just a sample of his what he's posted on Twitter:












Thursday 16 March 2017

David Singer: Netanyahu Sends Clear Message to Trump, Putin, May and UN

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

He writes:

Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu has had a busy week meeting with UK Foreign Minister Boris Johnson in Jerusalem, President Vladimir Putin in Moscow and then back to Jerusalem for a five hour meeting with President Trump’s Special Representative for International Negotiations – Jason Greenblatt.

The framework for these meetings was set by Netanyahu – who told Johnson:
“It’s evident that we agree on most things, but not on all things. And one of the things, I think the source of it when you analyze a problem, get to its roots and reason that we haven’t had peace for a hundred years is not the settlements, but the persistent refusal to recognize a nation-state for the Jewish people in any boundary. I think if you want to solve a problem, go to the core of the problem, and that is something I look forward to discussing with you further.”
Netanyahu’s claim is substantiated by the following facts:
1. Settlements were not the problem when the first two-state solution was proposed by article 25 of the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine in 1922.
That solution – which envisaged allocating the Arabs 78 per cent of Mandatory Palestine [Transjordan] and the Jews the remaining 22 per cent – was rejected by the Arabs but accepted by the Jews.
Iran – one of the 51 States then unanimously endorsing the Jewish people’s legal right to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in Palestine – now seeks to destroy the Jewish State in 2017.
2. Settlements were not the problem in 1937 when the Peel Commission recommended partition of the territory of the Mandate into one Jewish State and one Arab State – again rejected by the Arabs but accepted by the Jews.
3. Transjordan remained part of the Mandate for Palestine until Great Britain granted it independence on 22 March 1946. 78 per cent of the Mandate territory was thus irrevocably transformed into an exclusive Arabs-only State contrary to Article 5 of the Mandate.
4. The United Nations recommendation to partition the remaining 22 per cent of the Mandate territory into one Arab State and one Jewish State in November 1947 was again rejected by the Arabs and accepted by the Jews – culminating in Western Palestine being invaded in May 1948 by six Arab armies and the forcible eviction of all Jews living in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza. 
5. Settlements were not the problem between 1948 and 1967 when another Arab State could have been created with the stroke of an Arab League pen in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza whilst not one Jew lived there.
6. Offers by Israel in 2000/2001 and 2008 to another Arab State being created in Gaza and the West Bank were rejected by the Arabs.
7. In December 2016 UN Security Council Resolution 2334 declared that the Jewish Quarter and Kotel in East Jerusalem, the Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives, the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron and Rachel’s Tomb near Bethlehem were “occupied Palestinian territory”.
UK and Russia shamefully failed to veto this Resolution.
8. Gaza is ruled by Hamas and the Palestine Liberation Organization governs Areas A and B of the West Bank. Both have held onto power without holding elections since 2006. Both refuse to recognize a Jewish nation-state in any boundaries.
Johnson told Netanyahu:
“I first visited [Israel] when I was – as I never tire of telling you – when I was 18.”
Netanyahu should never tire of telling world leaders that the 100 years old Jewish-Arab conflict will not be resolved until the Arabs recognise the right of the Jewish People to their own independent State.

Wednesday 15 March 2017

Moodey Views: Bile behind the smile

It seems our old friend, the smiley Jeremy Moodey, is stepping down as head honcho of the NGO Embrace the Middle East (formerly BibleLands) for pastures new.

He  leaves the NGO a nasty legacy of Israel-demonisation:
'While Embrace the Middle East runs schools, and organizes educational programming and other community development initiatives, it promotes an entirely biased and distorted view of the conflict based solely on the Palestinian narrative of victimization and Israeli aggression.
Endorsed the Kairos Palestine document, which promotes BDS (boycotts, divestment and sanctions) and denies Jewish historical connections to Israel. 
CEO Jeremy Moody [sic] has called Zionism “an incoherent and racist theology.”
Moody posted a July 9, 2015 tweet endorsing BDS, stating: “Ten years of #BDS against Israel’s occupation of #Palestine. Major achievements for a movement that is now mainstream.”Moody sent an October 2013 letter to The Methodist Observer “explaining why Embrace the Middle East is encouraging Christians to consider BDS as a non-violent tool to end the occupation.”
Posted an August 17, 2015 tweet alleging, “The reality of Israeli settler- colonialism in #Palestine: bulldozers demolish ancient olive trees nr Bethlehem today.”
Embrace the Middle East published an “Advent Services Resource Pack,” which links “the familiar Christmas story to the stories of those living in the lands of the Bible TODAY,” in an attempt to exploit religious symbols and narratives to demonize Israel.
Publishes lesson plans for teachers to use in schools. One, on the theme of “Walls,” attempts to explain “the difficulties some Palestinian children have in getting to school” due to the security barrier. The lesson plan promotes the Palestinian narrative of victimization and Israeli aggression, while ignoring that the security barrier was constructed in response to a prolonged and brutal suicide bombing campaign by Palestinians groups against Israeli civilians.
Co-signed an August 2015 campaign, calling on world leaders “to press the Israeli government to lift the blockade on Gaza,” while altogether omitting that the blockade was implemented in an effort to stop Palestinian terrorists from smuggling of weapons and rockets into Gaza that would later be used to target Israeli civilians. Co-signatories include a number of other highly biased and politicized NGOs active in the Arab-Israeli conflict: Broederlijk Delen, Christian Aid, CCFD, Diakonia, French Platform of NGOs for Palestine, Heinrich Boll Foundation Palestine, Medical Aid for Palestinians, Medico International, Norwegian Church Aid, Norwegian People’s Aid, Oxfam, Pax Christi, Physicians for Human Rights, Trocaire, Lutheran World Federation, World Vision, and others.'
See more, with links, here

The most cursory glance at Mr Moodey's Twitter page indicates just how one tiny sliver of a country in the Middle East, that belonging to da Joos, tends to occupy his thoughts, and not in a pleasant way.

He's also got his boxer shorts in a twist over definitions of antisemitism, ventilating his views in a letter to a Church of England newspaper  (image on Twitter: the letter, that is, not the boxer shorts).

I wonder whether he would question Muslim definitions of Islamophobia.  (Nah, I don't think so!)

The most recent (at the time I type this) tweet of his relates to Stephen Sizer, whom he's always prone to defend.

That tweet's similar to what Mr Moodey's posted on Facebook (at left, above).

Only the tweet lacks the readers' comments which, though not without challenge from fair-minded folk, trivialise and at least on the part of one Sizer fan, actually deny that the vicar ever linked to that notorious "Israel did 9/11" article in the first place!


Former Foreign Office diplomat Mr Moodey, in his "valedictory despatch" to his NGO, can't resist a parting shot at Israel, heaping upon it most if not all  of the blame for the plight of Christians suffering under the jackboot of Hamas:
"The last seven years have been tumultuous for the region. The so-called Arab Spring, which began in 2011 brought about the downfall of regimes in Egypt, Libya, Yemen and Tunisia; The terrible war in Syria, the most violent and catastrophic conflict for at least a generation; Another brutal, unnecessary war in Yemen.
A succession of wars in Gaza and the effective collapse of any meaningful peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. The apparent abandonment by President Donald Trump of the ‘two-state solution’ in Israel/Palestine, without any obvious plan for what alternative solution to put in its place. The ongoing violence in Iraq and the emergence, seemingly from nowhere, of extreme Islamism in the form of ISIS, or Da’esh as many prefer to call it.
Meanwhile the historic Christian communities of the region have suffered: Persecuted by ISIS in Iraq and Syria, subjected to attacks on their churches and cathedrals in Egypt, humiliated and oppressed by occupation in Gaza, East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
The situation in Gaza is perhaps a microcosm of the wider region. When I arrived as CEO of what was then BibleLands in 2009, the tiny Christian community in Gaza totalled around 1,500. Today that community numbers barely 1,000, as Palestinian Christian families emigrate to escape the blockade and violence, and possibly also Islamist rule in the form of Hamas. At this rate of attrition, the last Palestinian Christian will leave Gaza in just over a decade."
Now let's hear from a specialist in tracing the plight of Christians in the Middle East, a man, writing last year, who knows exactly where the blame for their persecution in Gaza belongs:
'The plight of Christians living in Gaza under the Palestinian authority continues to worsen. According to a new Arabic language report, recent years have “witnessed a critical upsurge against the Christians,” who only amount to approximately 2,500 people—surrounded by approximately 1.5 million Muslims. Local authorities have abandoned the tiny minority to Islamist elements who have “placed great and continuous pressure” on the Christians.
“At times we hear of the bombing of a Christian bookshop and assaults on churches and other Christian institutions; other times we hear of the kidnapping of Christians and the coercion of them to embrace the religion of Muhammad,” says the report.
In mid October, Christians in Gaza led a protest, calling for the return of their kidnapped children and loved ones. They held up signs saying “I am a Christian and boast of my cross.” Bishop Alexios of the region “confirmed that the Christians who converted to Islam did so under threats, coercion, compulsion, and force.” His church also submitted a formal petition to the governor of the region, Ismail Haniyeh, calling on him to investigate matters, but received no response.
Palestinian Muslim leaders say that such Christians convert of their own free will and without pressure; however, these same Muslim leaders refuse to let their Christian families meet with or even learn the whereabouts of these recent converts, so they can confirm if their conversions were committed freely or under duress.
The report adds that Gaza’s Christians are calling on the Christian world to intervene. The bishop said that he is trying to communicate all of this to the Vatican, the United Nations, and the United States.'
 
Active directors of Embrace the Middle East:

Mariam Tadros .
https://site2corp.com/uk/mariam-tadros
Tanas Emill Tanas Alqassis
https://site2corp.com/uk/tanas-emill-tanas-alqassis
Dr Madeleine Davies
https://blogs.reading.ac.uk/english-at-reading/tag/dr-madeleine-davies/
https://site2corp.com/uk/madeleine-davies-1
Dr Kathryn Ann Kraft
https://site2corp.com/uk/kathryn-ann-kraft
Revd Brian Stephen Jolly
https://site2corp.com/uk/brian-stephen-jolly-1
Stephen Philip Dengate
https://site2corp.com/uk/stephen-philip-dengate
Christine Anne Clayton
https://site2corp.com/uk/christine-anne-clayton-1
John Philip Greville Neate
https://site2corp.com/uk/john-philip-greville-neate
Anthony James Ball
https://site2corp.com/uk/anthony-james-ball-2
Richard Brian Mcgucken
https://site2corp.com/uk/richard-brian-mcgucken
Lisa Jane Toner
https://site2corp.com/uk/lisa-jane-toner
Hugh Rowland Bradley
https://site2corp.com/uk/hugh-rowland-bradleyI

(hat  tip: E. Crabtree)

 http://www.embraceme.org/trustees

Tuesday 14 March 2017

At Their Wits' End: Israeli Arab speaks up for Israel (video)

On the campus of the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, a brave and articulate young Israeli Arab, Yahya of StandWithUs, speaks up for Israel, to the obvious ire of Wits Uni's BDS brigade:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAccNmG0Zb8

(Video: South African Union of Jewish Students)

Monday 13 March 2017

Faith in Israel (video)

Non-Jewish Canadian journalist Faith Goldy has been visiting Israel for The Rebel.com

There are several videos online relating to her trip.  In this one she airs her conclusions concerning that "little sliver of land":

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foqXF2WG48w

Sunday 12 March 2017

A Two-Fingered Salute to the Bishop & the Board, Vicar?

A sequel, in pictures, to my previous post. 


However:
 

By one of Sizer's Facebook friends, who runs a scurrilous anti-Israel/anti-Zionist blog (admittance long since by invitation only!):


Update:
It would be remiss of me not to link to John Bevan's post here which provides the answer
Do read the comments beneath the post too!

Saturday 11 March 2017

A Parson Without Honour: Stephen Sizer Suspended

It seems that our old friend the Vicar of Virginia Water has been prescribed a rest cure by his diocesan overlord prior to taking leave of his pulpit and his parishioners on Easter Sunday.

Readers will recall that following Sizer's infamous Facebook post regarding Israel and the 9/11 atrocities he undertook, in the words of his superior Andrew Watson, Bishop of Guildford:
"to refrain, with no exceptions, from attendance at or participation in any conferences which promote or are linked to this agenda; from all writing, tweeting, blogging, emailing, preaching and teaching on these themes, whether formally or informally – a prohibition which of course includes posting links to other sites; and from all background work in this area which may resource others to act as spokespeople in Stephen’s stead.
"Should Stephen be deemed by the Diocese to have broken this agreement, in letter or in spirit, he has pledged to offer me his immediate resignation, which I will duly accept. He has also agreed to desist from the use of social media entirely for the next six months, after which he and I will review that prohibition.
It is fair to say that Stephen seems relieved to be working within this clear new framework, and would now like to redirect his energies into his work as a parish priest...."
By the president of the Board of Deputies
As we now know, Sizer has been redirecting his energies into "Peacemaker Mediators" as I revealed here.

To quote John Bevan on the well-known British blog Harry's Place:
'....[B]etween 28 February and 6 March 2017, Rev Sizer  in four separate ways – broke his February 2015 undertaking not to write or speak “on any theme that relates, either directly or indirectly, to the current situation in the Middle East or to its historical backdrop”. He did this by linking to two other sites; by preaching on a theme directly related to the current situation in the Middle East; and by then linking to that sermon.
It would seem that Rev Sizer is trying to get away with breaching his February 2015 undertaking. He appears to have calculated that his Bishop won’t now go to the fuss of requiring him to resign, since he will be retiring on 16 April anyway. Yet the Bishop of Guildford’s November 2016 statement was (and remains) clear and unequivocal: the undertaking is to run until the end of Rev Sizer’s tenure of office; and any further breaches will result in that tenure ending with immediate effect.What happens next could be very significant.
No decent person – and certainly no Christian – should want anything to do with “Peacemaker Mediators”, a charity whose CEO will be Stephen Sizer and whose International Board of Reference will include Jenny Tonge. Yet if his Bishop now takes no action, Rev Sizer will retire after Easter, like the soldier who is discharged with honour. He will then, no doubt, trade on that relentlessly in his fundraising and future work. Yet if the Bishop upholds the twice-stated agreement, Dr Sizer will be forced to resign his parish ministry prematurely and with dishonour. This would have well-deserved negative effects on his future activities.
And so Bishop Andrew Watson once again faces a challenge. Will he now act on his strong and unequivocal warning of last November? Or will he meekly retract it, now the time has come for enforcement? Let’s hope he has the courage to do the right thing.' [Emphasis added]
And to quote a new statement (10 March) by the Bishop of Guildford, Andrew Watson:
“I have become aware that Dr Stephen Sizer has again contravened the agreement he made in February 2015 just five weeks before his planned retirement on Easter Sunday, 16 April 2017. Needless to say I am very disappointed by Dr Sizer’s actions.
Dr Sizer admits that material shared on his Facebook page in the past two weeks has breached our agreement, and so I have required him to cease all preaching, teaching and leading of services with immediate effect. He will also desist from all use of social media until his retirement takes effect. 
“To allow the parish of Virginia Water to say a proper goodbye, I have conceded that Dr Sizer leads ministry over the Easter weekend.”  [Emphasis added]
(I notice, incidentally, that Sizer's sermon concerning the Temple, which I mentioned here and which was one of the factors in the bishop's decision to suspend Sizer, is present in video format on the Christ Church Virginia Water website.)

As a commenter on John Bevan's article remarks, "Sacking Church of England ministers is really very difficult. I wouldn't envy the Bishop trying to get him dismissed in the few weeks he (Sizer) has got left in post."

But as Mr Bevan observes, "No decent person – and certainly no Christian – should want anything to do with “Peacemaker Mediators”, a charity whose CEO will be Stephen Sizer and whose International Board of Reference will include Jenny Tonge."

To read click here
Will the launch of "Peacemaker Mediators" take place at Christ Church as planned, I wonder, or in view of Sizer's latest breach of faith will the bishop order him to find another venue?

Sadly, Sizer, in breaking his agreement, has given Bishop Watson the proverbial "two-fingered salute".   More sadly still, this latest suspension, though morally justified, is only likely to make Sizer more popular in the eyes of the Israel-haters who have jumped on his bandwagon.

I can just imagine the grin on the turbulent priest's face.

Sequel here