Sophie, Israel & A Lyons Share of Spleen

Bet that makes her happy!

The ABC's overtly leftist and unashamedly biased-against-Israel Middle East correspondent Sophie McNeill has found a champion in the form of The Australian newspaper's Israel-bashing John Lyons. 

To quote the Guardian Down Under , in "his Middle East memoir Balcony Over Jerusalem" Lyons claims  

'he was subjected to consistent pressure from the Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) while based in Jerusalem for the Australian for six years, as were the ABC’s Sophie McNeill and the veteran ABC correspondent Peter Cave....

In 2015, AIJAC sent a file on McNeill to Jewish members of the ABC board, including the then chairman James Spigelman, and this file claimed among other things that she was unsuitable because she had said “one of the saddest things I’ve seen in my whole life is spending time filming in a children’s cancer ward in Gaza”.

The then ABC managing director Mark Scott ordered a detailed response from corporate affairs, which he took to the board.

“I will not cower to the AIJAC,” Scott said, according to Lyons.

Scott was also forced to defend McNeill from attacks at Senate estimates after the dossier was sent to key parliamentarians.

“Before this reporter set foot in the Middle East, there was a campaign against her personally taking up that role,” he said in response to a question from senator Eric Abetz.

“I am saying that she is a highly recognised and acclaimed reporter … she deserved that appointment and she needs to be judged on her work.”

In a letter to the board, Scott wrote: “The article [by AIJAC] demonstrates to Sophie McNeill and the ABC that her every word will be watched closely by AIJAC and she starts on the ground with this key interest group sceptical. We are all aware she will be under even closer scrutiny now. As they seek to influence our coverage, this is a pre-emptive ‘shot across the bows" .....'

Taking aim at Australia's steady pro-Israel foreign policy ("illogical and unhealthy") and at AIJAC and its director Dr Colin Rubenstein, Lyons asserts

“For more than 20 years, Australians have read and heard pro-Israel positions from journalists, editors, politicians, trade union leaders, academics and students who have returned from the all-expenses-paid Israel lobby trips. In my opinion, no editors, journalist or others should take those trips: they grotesquely distort the reality and are dangerous in the sense that they allow people with a very small amount of knowledge to pollute Australian public opinion.”

(What his opinion is of trips sponsored by APAN, the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network, is not reported.)

Inter alia, Dr Rubenstein has told the Guardian:

“We did put together a public document explaining why we thought Sophie McNeill … was an inappropriate choice for Middle East correspondent for the taxpayer funded ABC, with its statutory obligations of impartiality.

Everything we do – critiquing media stories; contacting editors, politicians and journalists and explaining our point of view to them; writing our our letters and op/eds; making complaints – are absolutely normal elements of deliberation and debate in a democratic society.

I would call on those who oppose our views, including Mr Lyons, to engage with different views in a democratic, tolerant and constructive spirit, rather than demand, as he appears to be doing, that those who disagree with him be silenced or suppressed.”

He's  absolutely right, of course.

The ABC is Australia's equivalent to the BBC: a national broadcaster upon which objective reporting is incombent in return for public funding, in the ABC's case not out of a licence fee but out of taxes.  But, again like the BBC, it is in the grip of the arrogant repulsive Left, and it promotes its leftwing agenda at will, thumbing its nose at critics and packing the panel and the audience to "flagship" programs such as Q&A (its version of the BBC's Question Time) with a surfeit of leftists.  In fact, if anything, its current affairs output and what it chooses to report and comment on is more brazenly leftist than the BBC's.

Sophie McNeill came to journalism and the ABC from a background of political activism and a determination to continue to pursue that activism.  This is how, six years ago,  she described her view of a journalist's role:

"If you just try to frame stories from the point of view of the people who are really suffering in a situation, be it in Lebanon, if you re hanging out in a Palestinian refugee camp, [or] in Gaza you re hanging out, you know, at the children’s cancer ward. One of the saddest things I’ve seen in my whole life is spending some time filming in a children’s cancer ward in Gaza. I just think if you just – if you look at a situation and you just – yeah, I guess just try to spend time with the people who are – who really don t have any power and it is hard, you know, for them to have a voice. Then that’s, yeah, that’s the kind of journalism I want to do.... Everyone knew what was happening in Gaza ... you saw all the horrific videos ... a lot of people died ... there are no excuses any more..."

 See here

Two years ago AIJAC's Ahron Shapiro observed:

"Any reporting by an ABC employee, including McNeill, is required to follow the following standards:

4.1 Gather and present news and information with due impartiality.

 4.2 Present a diversity of perspectives so that, over time, no significant strand of thought or belief within the community is knowingly excluded or disproportionately represented.

And also

 4.4 Do not misrepresent any perspective.

4.5 Do not unduly favour one perspective over another."

In a substantial article, he traced and analysed historic broadcasts by Ms McNeill that reveal her pattern of blatant partisanship in reportage concerning the Middle East.

He also drew attention to her pro-Palestinian activism.

For example:

'[I]n 2013, McNeill, along with prolific pro-Palestinian photographer Richard Wainwright were the only journalists presented to speak at the Human Rights in Palestine Conference at the ANU [Australian National University] ...

[W] hile living in Beirut in 2007, McNeill filed a story with the notorious anti-Israel website Electronic Intifada.

 Here, the content of the story she filed, which was about Lebanese mistreatment of Palestinians, was in itself not problematic. What is a problem, however, and what should have given ABC pause when choosing McNeill for her current job, is why McNeill chose to work with a website whose raison d’être is to increase popular support for the elimination of Israel and routinely publishes material justifying Palestinian terrorism against Israeli civilians.

Finally, in 2009 ... and again in 2013, McNeill initiated online campaigns to raise money for her “dear friend” and Gaza fixer, Raed Al Athamneh. Raising money to help someone you work with through a crisis is not necessarily inappropriate. But for a journalist to adopt the Palestinian narrative in their pitch for donations most certainly is.

 For example, she wrote “most of Gaza’s residents are refugees who used to live inside Israel’s borders, but were forced out when the country was created in 1948″.

This revisionist historical narrative that Israel forced out all the refugees – language used by her mentor Pilger – represents an endorsement of the Palestinian narrative that Israel is entirely responsible for the refugee problem, ignores the fact that the vast majority of Palestinians fled and were not forced out and ignores the war that was launched against Israel by the Arab nations and Palestinians who rejected partition.

In this essay, she also made an allegation that Israel “collectively punished” the Palestinians of Gaza, describing the blockade of Gaza as a means of punishing the Strip’s residents who support Hamas. [Emphasis added]

She initiated a fundraising campaign for Raed again in 2013, according to her friend and Australian Gazan Patrick Abboud and an appeal she posted on ABC Triple J Hack’s Facebook page.'

He observed:

'Her reporting does not show a clear record of separating her media career from her activism..

 And there is little doubt that her activism continues and influences her reporting in terms of how she frames stories, particularly about the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. ...

What makes this matter even more serious is the fact that the Jerusalem bureau is undergoing changes. While until now there were two ABC Middle East reporters (most recently Hayden Cooper and Matt Brown) as well as some support crew, the ABC says that it is making Jerusalem a Video Journalist bureau later this year. That move, it would appear, would give McNeill substantially more autonomy than previous Middle East correspondents have had.  

The onus now lies on O’Neill [sic] to demonstrate that ABC management was not irresponsible in making the appointment – given her self-described dedication to frame stories from the point of view of the people who are “really suffering” (in her lexicon, the Palestinians) – and whether she can possibly fulfil the statutory obligation of an ABC correspondent to present news with due impartiality and to be fair to all perspectives.'

 Is it any wonder, given her continuing partisanship, that advocates of fair and objective reporting were, and continue to be, dismayed by her appointment to the ABC?

"He Targeted My Sister Because She Was Jewish" (videos)

"He targeted my sister because she was Jewish" declares the brother of murdered Frenchwoman Sarah Halimi in this France24 report on the harrowing case, a report in which those convinced that her killer,  27-year-old Kobili Traoré, was motivated by raw antisemitism demand recognition of the murder in April as a hate crime:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Be7SSifX9Ok

A related new video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xoy_hTI7chk

To quote the uploader, Rita L.:

'Mayer Habib, Member of the French Parlament asks: why were the police mere spectators to the torture and defenestration murder of Mme Sarah Halimi ? And why was the obvious anti-semitic character of the assassination not acknowledged by the Court ? The assassin, a Muslim of Malian origin, tortured the poor Jewish woman to the shouts of "Allah-u-akbar".'

Antisemitism: Stephen Sizer speaks out

See Jewish Chronicle: click HERE

As is clearly evident (see, for example, the Jewish Chronicle here and here) certain sections of the British Left, especially Corbynistas, are despicably opposed to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's Definition of Antisemitism.

To quote Board of Deputies president Jonathan Arkush:

"The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism is endorsed by the Jewish community in the UK and across Europe.

In the UK it is also supported by the government, the Labour Party and the National Union of Students – among many other bodies.

It beggars belief that anyone ... would want to dictate to Jews what constitutes antisemitic abuse against them."

A day or two ago on social media a follower of the Peacemaker Mediators' CEO asks him a question.  To which the ex-vicar, a Corbynista in case you didn't know, made an obtuse yet predictable reply:

Seems promising, this comment of Sizer's:

Until we reflect on the sting in the tail.  His ex-Reverence is one of the "Likers" of this comment in response:

And he's one of the four Likes for Hugh Walker's comment "... nobody likes exceptionalism":

The ex-vicar must surely feel it's reasonable to suspect of antisemitism someone who posts links to articles which claim that Israel was responsible for 9/11.

Nu, Mr Sizer?

How about those who, like Press TV  presenter Yvonne Ridley, talk of Israel's "dark arts" (an abominable phrase that conjures up medieval accusations that Jews poisoned wells and murdered Christian children at Passover) yet is apparently liked by Baroness Tonge, one of Sizer's Press TV and Peacemaker Mediators buddies.

 Anything you'd like to add in the way of enlightenment, Mr Sizer?

Nah. I guess not.

How about those who bear false witness against the aims of Zionism, like your friend Cozzens?  A contemptible bunch?

Silly me!  A redundant question on my part, as this old post of yours reveals:

And the economic cudgel against the Jewish State?

BDS is, in fact, as US Senator Chuck Schumer observed recently, just a repackaging of an old hatred:

'Antisemitism is a word that has been used throughout history when Jewish people are judged and measured by one standard and the rest by another.

When everyone else was allowed to farm and Jews could not; when anyone else could live in Moscow and Jews could not; when others could become academics or tradesmen and Jews could not,” he said. “The word to describe all of these acts is antisemitism. So it is with anti-Zionism; the idea that all other peoples can seek and defend their right to self-determination but Jews cannot; that other nations have a right to exist, but the Jewish state of Israel does not.

The global BDS movement is a deeply biased campaign that I would say, in similar words to Mr. [Emmanuel] Macron, is a "reinvented form of antisemitism" because it seeks to impose boycotts on Israel and not on any other nation.'

Stephen Sizer, this is not the first time you have advocated a single state to replace the legally constituted sovereign state of Israel.  Do not be surprised to find this extraordinary advocacy labelled antisemitism.  Once again, your lack of sympathy, of empathy, for the Jews of Israel, seems predicated on prejudice if not malice, and this blatant lack of objectivity gives the lie to any claim that your so-called Peacemaker Mediators as anything but a biased and mischievous body.

How can a body already blindly prejudiced against one side in a dispute "mediate" a just solution?

It is both a sad and a laughable presumption.

Finally, I draw to your attention, Mr Sizer, this article by Moshe Arens, in which Arens tells us baldly

"The leader of the northern branch of the Islamic Movement, whose battle cry is 'Al-Aqsa is in danger,' is the one most responsible for the current spate of violence"

 It's none other that Raed Salah whom Arens characterises as "Israel's inciter-in-chief"

Another of your anti-Israel chums from way back, eh, ex-vicar?

Deep sigh.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         Not a wonderful advertisement for the integrity of Peacemaker Mediators, is it?


Certainly it's not calculated to make Israel ever entrust your mob with negotiations for a "peace settlement"!

California Dreamin': "The last hour will not take place until the Muslims fight the Jews"

His voice cracking with emotion towards the close of the video, this Californian imam, Egyptian-American Sheikh Ammar Shahin, inveighs in bloodthirsty fashion against the Jews.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3XJH3NhO7Y

Not surprisingly, as Fox News reports, Jewish groups are asking Homeland Security, U.S. attorney's office to investigate him for his loathsome invective:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CZtosJ5NpU

More, including the preacher's attempted excuses, on Breitbart here

An Equal Opportunity Palestinian Preacher (video)

"As a Palestinian, a Muslim, and Arab ... I say the time has come to sound the trumpet of Jihad .... initially in Palestine ... and eventually the whole world" thunders Sheikh Muhammad Nimr Zaghmout, head of the Palestinian Islamic Council in Lebanon. 

What's more, he says, it's “an individual duty” incumbent upon every Muslim man and woman.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmXMcfp12yk

To quote the uploader, Memri.org, he is seen here 'declaring Jihad for the “liberation” of the Al-Aqsa Mosque during a July 16 interview on Mayadeen TV'.

"Perniciously & Dishonestly": The anti-Israel bang of The Drum

Antony Loewenstein is a freelance Australian journalist who has made a name for himself, and a living, spewing propaganda against Israel.

Astonishingly, his book My Israel Question was published by no less a publishing house than the prestigious Melbourne University Press (MUP), headed by Louise Adler (who I believe is or has been a member of his Independent Australian Jewish Voices and is a frequent panellist on the leftwing ABC's answer to the leftwing BBC's Question Time, Q&A.)

"Astonishingly", because the book is a piece of political polemic, a diatribe, not a serious academic work, and in the world of academic publishing Down Under MUP is a leader indeed.

Even hard leftist anti-Zionist Jews condemned Mr Loewenstein's use of this image (featuring then prime minister Julia Gillard, a friend of Israel) on his website a few years ago.

Yesterday, Mr Loewenstein was a panellist on the ABC's The Drum, anchored by Ellen Fanning, which had a segment on "how Israel is reported on".

There was no attempt to balance the panel, and, worse, there was no attempt to explain to viewers that Loewenstein (a longtime favourite of the ABC) has form as a polemicist against Israel.
 

John Lyons of The Australian told viewers that "foreign correspondents in Israel censor themselves," and Loewenstein got stuck in to the "Israel lobby" which "perniciously and dishonestly" carries on its task. "Israel lobby bullying" soon became the theme of the segment, with Fanning making a half-hearted attempt to enquire about the "Palestinian lobby" before settling back and allowing the anti-Israel bias to continue.

How pernicious and dishonest of the ABC to include Mr Loewenstein on the panel with no counterbalance and no mention of his background as an anti-Israel polemicist.

The program can be viewed here, the segment in question starting around 18:55 

It should be protested.

In London, Ferals Burn Israeli Flag, Scream Allahu Akhbar (updated)

Near the Israeli Embassy yesterday:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSNbGUBiO9M

More from David Collier:

"Islamic thugs, attacking the Jews outside the Israeli embassy. Stealing and burning the flag. Israeli flag burning from about 3 minutes in. Cries of Allahu Akbar. Footage from 22/7 at Israeli Embassy. Hezbollah flag back on London streets, violent Islamic thugs. Listen to vile commentary too."

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCs8VhjHXu8

Let me remark that whenever you feel tempted to praise Tony Blair, just remind yourself that his Open Door policy, cynically and deliberately designed to destroy by demography the conservative vote in England and keep Labour perpetually in power, helped to make London the cesspool of Israel-hatred it is today.

"When They Say Zionists They Mean Jews": Vox Pop outside PalExpo (videos)

Outside PalExpo in London not long ago, pro- and anti-Israel  (members of Friends of Al-Aqsa, according to the uploader) proponents clash, in verbal jousting that sometimes gets hot and heavy, with the markedly outnumbered "Zionists," at least one of whom – Jonathan Hoffman in the lilac-coloured shirt – was refused a ticket to the Expo, valiantly standing their ground..

One of the Israel-demonisers betrays his stereotypes about Jews with a crack about spending their money on Rolex watches...   He seems reluctant or unable to reply to the question "Why are there no Jews in Pakistan?"

The avowed ex-policeman in the rather startling tee-shirt (X-rated at first glance?) carries out a goody bag of Palestinian purchases, and declares "I'm British ... I'm objective" ...

 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tW_1mUhEVj8

More sparring here:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAi8FPZ4l2M

"When they say Zionists they mean Jews"observes the stalwart Mr Hoffman:

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

(Have a look at other videos on YouTube by the uploader, Eye On Antisemitism Monitoring)

David Singer: Trump Should Dump PLO and Jump-Start Israel-Jordan Negotiations

Image credit: Israelidiplomacy.com

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

He writes:

President Trump has completed six months in office without managing to get Israel and the PLO to resume their negotiations – stalled since April 2014.

Trump’s failure has not been for lack of trying.

The President has turned on his political charm offensive – inviting both Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas to the White House – whilst making personal visits to Jerusalem and Bethlehem – all apparently to no avail.

Senior Advisor to the President Jared Kushner, Assistant to the President and Special Representative for International Negotiations Jason Greenblatt, and United States Ambassador to Israel David Friedman have been actively engaged on the ground in both Jerusalem and Ramallah in talks with Israel and the PLO – yet nothing of significance has emerged to indicate the PLO is ready to meet Israel without preconditions face to face across the negotiating table.

Even if these two adversaries resumed negotiations – there appears little chance of the PLO modifying demands that:

1. it be granted sovereignty over every square metre of Judea and Samaria (“the disputed territories”) and

2. Jerusalem be divided.

Offers by Israel in 2000/2001 and 2008 to cede its claims in more than 90% of the disputed territories have already been rejected by the PLO.

Trump needs to identify a new Arab partner to replace the PLO and join Israel in allocating sovereignty of the disputed territories between Jews and Arabs.

That partner should be Jordan – for four compelling reasons:

1. Jordan and Israel have enjoyed a signed peace treaty since 1994 which already contains provisions for resolving contentious issues in the disputed territories such as water, and refugees – and Jerusalem.

2. The PLO Charter does not recognise Jordan or Israel’s right to exist as separate territorial units:

 “Palestine, with the boundaries it had during the British Mandate, is an indivisible territorial unit.'

Palestine during the British Mandate (1922-1948) encompassed Israel, the disputed territories and Jordan.

3. Jordan’s 

· invasion and annexation of the disputed territories contrary to international law between 1948 and 1967

· continuing role in the disputed territories by extending Jordanian citizenship to the Arabs resident there until 1988 stamp it as eminently suited to resolve a problem it helped to create.

4. History, geography and demography qualify Jordan and Israel – the two successor States to 95% of the territory of the British Mandate – to resolve sovereignty over the disputed territories – just 4% of the Mandate.

Netanyahu eloquently articulated this position at the United Nations on 11 December 1984:

“Clearly, in Eastern and Western Palestine, there are only two peoples, the Arabs and the Jews. Just as clearly, there are only two states in that area, Jordan and Israel. The Arab State of Jordan, containing some three million Arabs, does not allow a single Jew to live there. It also contains four-fifths of the territory originally allocated by this body's predecessor, the League of Nations, for the Jewish National Home. The other State, Israel, has a population of over four million, of which one sixth is Arab. It contains less than one fifth of the territory originally allocated to the Jews under the Mandate.... It cannot be said, therefore, that the Arabs of Palestine are lacking a state of their own. The demand for a second Palestinian Arab State in Western Palestine, and a 22nd Arab State in the world, is merely the latest attempt to push Israel back into the hopelessly vulnerable armistice lines of 1949.”

This fetid swamp urgently needs draining – Israel and Jordan are the parties that can make it happen.

President Trump – over to you to weave your proven negotiating skills.

Bibi in Budapest: "There is This Camouflaged Antisemitism That is Directed at the Rebirth of the Jewish People"

Addressing members of the Hungarian Jewish community, the great communicator speaks of the contributions of "these two genius Jews of Hungary," namely "our modern Moses, Theodor Herzl" and Max Nordau, to the noble movement Zionism, and lauds Viktor Orban for his friendship towards Israel:

 

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEyVYxYk7No

Given that deeply ingrained sense of history of his, Bibi begins this typically splendid (and upbeat) speech ("Markets first, technology second") at the Israel-Hungary Economic Forum, with Viktor Orban and business people from both countries, with a reference to Herzl and Nordau and so much more:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuSAsT32RKE

John Bolton Anew on the Iran Threat

Recently, the former US Ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, was among the distinguished speakers at the Free Iran gathering in Paris:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4o8vklkKeM

Now, for the Gatestone Institute here, he warns anew of Iran's nuclear threat:

'Tehran's violations of the deal have become public, including: exceeding limits on uranium enrichment and production of heavy water; illicit efforts at international procurement of dual-use nuclear and missile technology; and obstructing international inspection efforts (which were insufficient to begin with).... Care to bet how close Tehran — and North Korea — now are? Consider the costs of betting wrong'

Meanwhile, Stephen Sizer and Jenny Tonge, two Israel-hater "Peacemaker Mediators" exult:

Misplaced Tsorres Over Soros?

See Times of Israel by clicking caption

On social media "as-a-Jew" Israel-bashers and other politically "progressive" usual suspects are heartily recommending an op-ed in the New York Times by Mairav Zonszein that's full of apologetics for George Soros.

"Israel's War against George Soros," it's called, and it begins:

 "As a Holocaust survivor, a successful financier who embraces free market capitalism and a philanthropist who champions liberal democracy, George Soros should be a darling of the Israeli establishment."

And continues:

"For years Mr. Soros largely avoided Israel-related philanthropy, but he became involved in 2008 when he contributed to J Street, a moderate pro-Israel, pro-peace lobbying group based in Washington, after it was founded. Through his Open Society Foundations, Mr. Soros also contributes to the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem and the anti-occupation group Breaking the Silence, which have been subjected to a growing delegitimization campaign by the Israeli government.

But Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, raised the stakes in this feud last week when his foreign ministry issued a statement that, in effect, backed a Hungarian government propaganda effort against Mr. Soros and joined its denunciation of him....."

But as another writer reminds us:

".... George Soros is also a “progressive” (although it wasn’t so progressive to rip off all those British working people), and viciously anti-Zionist. He donates very large sums to left-wing organizations all over the world, including many that advocate BDS against Israel. Soros and groups connected to him have given millions to J Street, the phony “pro-Israel” lobbying group in the US.

Indeed, the Soros contribution to anti-Israel incitement is probably exceeded only by what comes from European governments, Saudi Arabia and Iran..."

In essence Mairav Zonszein, who's a contributor to +972 Magazine, surely tends to underline the validity of Evelyn Gordon's recent article in Commentary magazine entitled "The Left’s Inversion of Anti-Semitism".

Evelyn Gordon concedes that

"Some attacks on Soros are anti-Semitic, like when someone at an anti-refugee rally in Poland in 2015 set fire to an effigy of an Orthodox Jew which he said represented Soros. That’s classic anti-Semitism; it implies both that the real problem is Soros’s Jewishness rather than anything he did, and that all Jews are responsible for Soros’s actions."

 And there's certainly cause for concern (see the Times of Israel here)

Yet, Evelyn Gordon goes on to observe:

'The Hungarian campaign, however, targets Soros not for his Jewishness, which it never even mentions, but for his actions: specifically, the fact that he is one of the main financial backers of pro-immigration organizations in Hungary. . . . Yet both Jews and non-Jews have risen up to declare such criticism “anti-Semitic” solely because he happens to be Jewish. . . .

Now contrast this with, say, what happened at last month’s “Chicago Dyke March,” when three people carrying rainbow flags with Stars of David on them were kicked out of the march because the flag was “pro-Israel,” and therefore unacceptable at a progressive demonstration. The Star of David is the most recognizable Jewish symbol in existence; . . . that’s precisely why Israel put it on its national flag. That’s also why the so-called “Jewish pride” flag has a Star of David on its rainbow background—not to represent Israel, but to represent the marchers’ Judaism. . . .

In other words, these marchers were expelled solely for carrying an obviously Jewish symbol at a progressive event. This is classic anti-Semitism: Jews are welcome only if they divest themselves of anything that could identify them as Jews. Yet in the progressive world, such anti-Semitism is deemed perfectly acceptable so long as you claim, as the march organizers did, that the victims were expelled for being “Zionists.”. . .

[Thus, for] the progressive left . . . targeting people for being Jewish is no longer anti-Semitic, but targeting people for being progressive activists is. . . . [I]nstead of being a shield to protect Jews, charges of anti-Semitism have become a shield to protect leftists. And thereby the left has completed the process of redefining anti-Semitism to its own benefit, to the detriment of the Jews.'

See also Breitbart here

Bibi and his wife arrive in Hungary:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kwpj7EN2qg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68wlG604ShY

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

In the third of these videos Bibi speaks from about 1:26. 

"The Future Belongs To Those Who Innovate": Bibi in Paris

Shamefully, Israel-haters demonstrated ahead of Bibi Netanyahu's visit to France, to commemorate  the 75th anniversary of the rounding up and incarceration of Paris’ Jews in the Vél d'Hiv in 1942.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yiJJty--J4

How miffed they must be when they see footage of Macron and Netanyahu today (Bibi's remarks start about 7:55) and Macron's declaration that “We will not surrender to anti-Zionism, because it is a reinvention of antisemitism”:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLfVo6-2A2A

Bibi's splendid address earlier:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAMuzL7vHus

 "Mr. President, my friend Emmanuel Macron, and all the distinguished people that are assembled here, the Mayor of France, our respective ambassadors, the heads of the Jewish community, the witnesses, those who've worked so hard to bear witness. I want to thank you for inviting me to join you today to honor the memory of the Jews who were dispatched from this place to the death camps.

We've heard stirring testimonies, heart-rending testimonies. They were incinerated into smoke and dust. Four thousand here, children. To get a scale of the Holocaust, what happened here on that day in the heart of Paris, multiply it by 400 times, 400 Parises, and you will get the scale, the enormous scale of the destruction of European Jewry, the destruction of our children.

I've come here today from Jerusalem, the eternal united capital of the Jewish people and the Jewish state. I've come here to bow my head in memory of our slain brothers and sisters, slaughtered solely because they were Jews. I've come here to mourn with you the victims. My wife Sara, who's with us, lost her entire family in the Holocaust. We all come to mourn together the victims, but at the same time to proudly declare: Am Yisrael Chai! The people of Israel lives!

Seventy-five years ago, a heavy darkness descended on this City of Lights. The Nazis, yes, the Nazis and their collaborators in France, and Jacques Chirac and successive presidents deserve much credit for telling the truth. They shattered the lives of thousands of French Jews at Vel’ d’Hiv. It seems that the values of the French Revolution – Liberty, Equality and Fraternity – these values were crushed brutally under the boot of antisemitism. Yet we must say, and we heard it today as well, we must say that not all was dark.

And, on behalf of the State of Israel, on behalf of the Jewish People, I salute the noble French citizens, who at great risk to their own lives, saved their Jewish compatriots. We will always remember with profound gratitude and admiration the heroic residents of places like Chambon-sur-Lignon, who saved thousands of Jews. This is a special heroism. We have known in Israel a lot of heroism, as have you here in France. This is different heroism. There is heroism in battle, in pitting one's life to save others. But the heroism of the people who saved Jews involved putting their families at risk, putting their children, their wives, their husbands, at the risk of execution.

We will never forget, never, these great human beings, Chasidei Umot Ha'Olam, the Righteous Among the Nations. They give us a map and a compass for charting the course of humanity.

After the horrific Second World War, France built itself anew to a thriving successful democracy of enterprise and culture. So did the Jews of France. For many, Simone Weil symbolized this rebirth. Simone bore the number 78651 on her arm, as a permanent reminder of her suffering in Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. As a minister in successive French governments, as President of the European Parliament, Simone Weil vanquished her persecutors. So did the Jewish People.

Out of the ash of destruction, we established the Jewish State. And it is the strength of Israel that is the one certain guarantee that the Jewish People will never undergo a Holocaust again. Never again. We will never let it happen again.

Mr. President, my friends, We have come here with survivors of this persecution, like Mr. Noah Kliger, who is with us. He's over 90 years old. He is here in a wheelchair. He is here because he and we have learned the timeless lessons that discrimination and persecution often starts with the Jews, but it never ends there. Recently, we have witnessed a rise of extremist forces that seek to destroy not only the Jews and of course the Jewish state as well, but well beyond that. They wish to destroy anyone that stands in their way – Jews, Christians, Muslims, who suffer the brunt of their savagery.

Monsieur le President,Two days ago in Nice, you said that this was a war of civilizations. I fully agree. Militant Islam wants to destroy our common civilization. The militant Shiites led by Iran, the militant Sunnis led by ISIS – both seek to vanquish us. They seek to destroy Europe.

It may not be obvious today, but it is completely obvious for anyone who listens to what they say, what they preach, what they teach their disciples, what they teach their children. They must vanquish, overcome, subdue, and ultimately eliminate European civilization. Israel is merely the first Western target that stands in their way. Militant Islamists do not hate the West because of Israel. To the contrary, they hate Israel because of the West, because they rightly see in Israel a forward bastion of our common values of freedom, humanism, democracy. They try to destroy us, but also they try to destroy you, and France is a leading power in the world, a leading democracy, so it is not being spared either. In Nice, in Paris, in Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray and elsewhere, savage terrorists brutally murdered French citizens. They have also targeted French Jews in Toulouse, in the Hyper Cacher here in Paris, and recently, with the horrific murder of Sarah Halimi of blessed memory.Mr. President,You stand boldly and proudly against this scourge. You clearly condemn and fight antisemitism, and you clearly condemn and fight this larger militancy that seeks to destroy our world.

I was deeply impressed by the fact that your first visit abroad was to Mali where this cancerous plague is trying to consume the heart of Africa and from there, expand elsewhere.

Monsieur le President,Your struggle is our struggle. The zealots of militant Islam, who seek to destroy you, seek to destroy us as well. We must stand against them together; we must remain strong against them together; and we must defeat them together. For the sacred honor of those who perished here, for the sake of generations to come, let us ensure victory – the victory of Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité.

Let us remember the past, let us secure tomorrow."

Great Gloating in the Glen

Despite his slogan that "Anti-Semitism is a crime" Scottish PSC chief Mick Napier has apparently done nothing to solve the problem of Jacinta and her ilk.

Perhaps he's as yet unaware of the Holocaust denying contingent among his followers exposed by David Collier. 

Whatever the case, Mick and the SPSC are cock-a-hoop over the outcome of a trial in Glasgow.

In the words of Press TV presenter and Islamic "revert" Yvonne Ridley,

'In yet another landmark legal victory, members of the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign emerged from court victorious today after being accused of racism. Their “crime”? Standing up to Zionism.  The trial ended three years of speculation and pressure for SPSC members whose robust defence of their actions won the day in Glasgow Sherriff’s Court when the verdict was announced on Friday.

Four days of evidence and cross-examinations earlier this month focussed on the actions of two SPSC members who faced charges of racism and aggravated trespass for a protest against Israeli company Jericho cosmetics, which operates around the Dead Sea in the occupied West Bank. The protest was held in the wake of Israel’s 2014 military offensive against Palestinian civilians besieged in the Gaza Strip. More than 2,200 Palestinians were killed by the Israelis during the offensive, including 550 children, before in the war ended on 26 August. During the demonstration on 13 September 2014, the SPSC protesters denounced the killings.

Police were called to the shopping centre where the protest was being held, leading to the arrest of the two SPSC members accused of racism. “In other words,” explained Mick Napier, one of those arrested, “we were accused of being motivated by hatred of Israelis rather than opposition to Israel’s repeated massacres, apartheid across the whole of Palestine and genocidal violence in Gaza.”

During the Glasgow trial, the SPSC was buoyed by a High Court ruling in London that the Conservative government in Westminster acted unlawfully when it tried to prevent local councils in Britain from divesting from companies involved in Israel’s military occupation. The successful legal challenge for the right to boycott was brought by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign in London, supported by War on Want, the Campaign Against the Arms Trade and the Quakers.

However, Napier wasn’t convinced that the result of the latest trial was a foregone conclusion. “Given their past record, we felt it was unlikely that even this High Court ruling in favour of BDS [boycott, divestment and sanctions] would stop Scottish prosecutors’ related efforts to criminalise the campaign in support of Palestinian freedom.”

The prosecutor — called the Procurator Fiscal in the Scottish legal system — claimed in open court that the two accused in the Glasgow case were recycling an ancient anti-Semitic “Jewish blood libel” by speaking about Israeli mass murder of Palestinians. The Procurator Fiscal’s office made these claims, said Napier, while the violated people of Gaza “were still looking for ice-cream freezers and vegetable refrigerators in which to store the bodies of children killed by Israel’s military.”

In their testimony last month, Napier and his co-accused Jim Watson both rejected the claims made by prosecution witnesses, a Chief Inspector of police, the manager of the Jericho stall and two local Zionist activists. The prosecution claim was that staff were intimidated by “racist” placards and the shouting of “racist abuse”; this was the description of the SPSC’s criticism of the pro-Israel counter-demonstrators for supporting Israel’s most recent massacre of Palestinians.

The “racist” placard with which the Procurator Fiscal and Zionist witnesses took particular issue was a symbolic but graphic image of blood dripping under the name “Dead Sea cosmetics”. Napier pointed out that at the time of their protest, the UN Secretary-General was describing Israel’s massacre of thousands of Palestinians as a “moral outrage and criminal act” and a “gross violation of humanitarian law.”

http://david-collier.com/dumbarton-antisemites-party/

“When the Scottish government joined in by denouncing the ‘deep inhumanity’ of the Israeli massacre,” noted Napier, “the Scottish procurators fiscal were working hand in glove with pro-Israel lobby groups to silence voices of Palestine solidarity.”

The SPSC has faced repeated efforts by pro-Israel lobbyists and Scottish prosecutors to criminalise the group’s pro-Palestine activities. The Zionist record to-date is one of almost total failure; legal action has failed to secure any convictions of pro-Palestine activists.

“There was, however, a consolation prize [for the Zionists] when we were both found guilty of refusing to leave the shopping centre when asked to do so by the police,” said Napier. “I was also convicted of aggravated trespass for protesting inside the shopping centre. We will be appealing against both convictions so any celebrations by the Zionists will, I suggest, be a bit premature.”

In February last year, two employees of the pro-Israel Community Security Trust made allegations against SPSC members but that was also thrown out by Kilmarnock Sheriff Court when the Sheriff ruled that the crime as alleged had not taken place. “Had we not had the benefit of an Al-Jazeera Arabic language broadcast of the protest where the CST tried to secure an assault conviction there might have been a different outcome,” added Mick Napier.'

She never did say whether her stents were made in Israel

Come on, Mick.  Pull yer finger out.  What will you do with a problem like Jacinta?

(Meanwhile, here in Australia, a setback for an as-a-Jew Israel hater)


Meanwhile:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLbmk-ulpkE

"It's About Time We Had an Intifada in This Country!" (video)

A collection of eyebrow-raising pronouncements from an American professor:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2k5QaUOBE4

Asserts the uploader, Canary Mission, which has a must-read post here, 

'Nablus-born Hatem Bazian, is notorious for calling for intifada [violent uprising] in the USA. He is the founder of radical organizations, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and American Muslims for Palestine (AMP). He is a serial pusher of conspiracies, and has a 'project' to re-write history. More worryingly, he is largely responsible for the wave of antisemitic incitement across North American campuses.'

Ben Shapiro & Qanta Ahmed on US Activist Linda Sarsour (video)

First, Ben Shapiro (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fdnwx1zR_hM):

 Second, Dr Qanta Ahmed (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyfpW1Qovhs):

See also Nonie Darwish here

Will Scottish PSC Chief Mick Napier Throw Her Out?

Scottish PSC chief Mick Napier has implied a new activity for his Israel-hating faithful, i.e. harassing singer Chrissie Hynde who, it has been announced, will be performing in Israel with the Pretenders:

Mick's PSCers have meanwhile been out in force targetting Radiohead, and commending on Facebook the latest article by veteran Israel-hating director Ken Loach:

Of late, Mick and the SPSC often hit the streets under the aegis of a banner condemning antisemitism as a crime (I think the chief himself thought that slogan up, though I'm not sure):

 

 A woman called Jolanta Hadzic would seem to be a member of Mick's SPSC:

At the time I write this, Jolanta Hadzic has 1,103 Facebook Friends including the controversial Jacqueline Walker and Mick Napier himself. I'm not going to share the sickening antisemitic cartoon that she shared to social media which  David Collier has unearthed.  I wouldn't presume to try to steal his thunder.  Go to David's latest brilliant article,  about the demo in Glasgow against Radiohead and its Holocaust-denying contingent, to see the reprehensible truth.

It is time, therefore, for Mick Napier to boot her out, along with any others of her ilk.  It will be interesting to see how thin the ranks get.

Any of those 1,031 Friends who looks at David Collier's revelations will surely want to disavow Ms Hadzic.

Unless, of course, they are antisemites themselves

David Singer: Trump can end Israel-PLO impasse using India’s Vedanta Solution

Image: http://www.ndtv.com

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

He writes:

The first state visit ever to Israel by an Indian prime minister – Narendra Modi – could generate the impetus President Trump needs to end the diplomatic void caused by the breakdown in negotiations between Israel and the PLO since 2014.

The obvious warmth, mutual admiration and friendship shared by Modi and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was clearly evident – contrasting with the hostility, acrimony and venom shown to Israel that has become the norm at the United Nations, UNESCO and UNHRC.

Israel has historically had a long love affair with India’s Vedanta Movement (also known as the Ramakrishna Movement) – a worldwide spiritual movement headquartered near Kolkota in West Bengal.

Vedanta wishes and prays for the well-being, happiness and enlightenment of all the people of the world.

Writing on Modi’s visit, Khinvraj Jangid pointed out that Israel’s first Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion:

'… wrote, in September 1957, to Dr. Indra Sen (of the Aurobindo Ashram) praising the distinctive Indian approach to religion: "From Buddhism I have learned much about the history of religion and philosophy in India in general – and after I was enchanted by the Vedanta I began the study of the schools of Sankhya and Yoga. In his bedroom in the Negev kibbutz of Sde Boker, there was only one leader’s portrait: Gandhi’s.”'

Modi himself reportedly attended a comprehensive course studying Vedanta.

Vedanta’s views on peace in the Middle East (“the Vedanta Solution”) were published in The Times of London on 16 March 1982 (see image below) by Vedanta’s British Chairman Swami Avyaktananda:

“It is generally not known that the East Bank [of the Jordan River – ed] was a part of ancient Palestine and when Britain obtained the Mandate for Palestine, the League of Nations included it in Palestine”

Swami Avyaktananda quoted as his sources:

· Two maps in the 14th edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica (1929) 

· J.F. Horrabin’s map on page 64 of The Life of Jesus by Conrad Noel (1937) · The map of Palestine on page 18 of “A Short History of the Hebrews” by B.K. Rattey (1931) 

· 2 Sam ii

 The Swami continued:

'The major portion of Jordan today is really East Palestine, the country on the other side of the Jordan being West Palestine. The handing-over of the territory east of the Jordan River to the Emir Abdullah was, to all intents and purposes, the first partition of Palestine [in 1946 – ed.]through which a large portion of Palestine [78% - ed.] went to Arab hands. This partition was not considered when the United Nations framed the Plan of partition of Palestine into Jewish Palestine and Arab Palestine [in 1947 – ed.].

If the Palestine Liberation Organisation accepts the historical facts presented here, considers sympathetically the Jewish aspirations and struggle for the National Home, National Language and National Culture for about 2000 years, and agrees to rethink the problems of the Middle East with goodwill and understanding then the problem of the Middle East will be solved without difficulty. The whole of ancient Palestine will be shared by Jews and Arabs through an amicable settlement if the Palestinian National Home is established in the East Bank of the Jordan. It can be called “New Palestine” and this naming will be quite correct.'

The PLO, Jordan and Israel can cooperatively implement the Vedanta Solution  – extended to incorporate the allocation of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) between Jordan and Israel – or Jordan and Israel can so act jointly if the PLO refuses to participate.

Embracing the two-State Vedanta Solution – with Modi as a possible interlocutor – could be the Trojan Horse President Trump needs to broker a deal to end the Arab-Jewish conflict.