"She Thus Displays Her Profound Ignorance of Jewish, Arab and Middle Eastern History"

Here's Emily Thornberry, Corbyn's shadow foreign secretary, telling Middle East Eye's editor-in-chief David Hearst and columnist Peter Oborne 

"I don’t think we celebrate the Balfour Declaration but I think we have to mark it because I think it was a turning point in the history of that area and I think probably the most important way of marking it is to recognise Palestine"

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uJERCQjQ5U

And here's (hat tip: Christians United for Israel UK) Ms Thornberry in July, clashing with Conservative MPs regarding the the Middle East, Corbyn's "friends" and the recognition of a Palestinian state.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Msh2SqpQvh8

Is it any wonder, then, that  Marvellous Melanie sees Thornberry's stance as emblematic of the malevolence Corbyn's Labour Party is evincing towards Israel and by extension towards the Jewish People?

To quote from Ms Phillips's denunciation:

'When Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn refused to attend this week’s dinner in London to mark the centenary of the Balfour Declaration, a dinner to which Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been invited as the guest of Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May, Corbyn said Labour’s shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry would attend in his place.

Now remarks made by Thornberry inescapably imply that, like Corbyn, she too regrets the fact that Israel was ever created. Instead she supports its mortal enemies whose agenda remains Israel’s destruction....

Her support for the existence of Israel is, by her own lights, conditional on the existence of a state of Palestine. She thus displays her profound ignorance of Jewish, Arab and Middle Eastern history by assuming that people called the Palestinians were entitled to the same promise of a national homeland. ....

And of course, a Palestine state alongside Israel has been on offer repeatedly since 1936 – yet it has been the Arabs and “Palestinians” who have refused it while the Jews have always accepted it. There could be a state of Palestine tomorrow if the Palestinians would accept Israel’s right to exist alongside it. Instead, they want such a state solely in order to destroy Israel altogether....'

Read all of Ms Phillips's article here

Meanwhile, anti-Israel Jewish-blogger-married-to-a-Christian-vicar Robert Cohen ("Micah's  Paradigm Shift") and his friends on social media are celebrating a letter he wrote to the Manchester University authorities:

And:

David Singer: Balfour Declaration Falsehoods Fuel Jew-Hatred and Israel-Bashing

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

He writes:

The centenary of the Balfour Declaration issued on 2 November 1917 is being used to unleash a barrage of falsehoods designed to denigrate the Jewish people and delegitimise the Jewish State of Israel.

Among those current egregious falsehoods:

1. Raja Zaatry – an official of the High Follow-up Committee – the Arab community’s leadership body in Israel – has asserted:

 “In 1917 less than 10% of the population was Jewish and more than 90% Arab. The British gave to the Jews something that didn’t belong to them”

The British Government gave nothing to the Jews in 1917 other than its “declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations" expressed in the Balfour Declaration. Palestine in 1917 still remained under Turkey’s rule as part of the 400 years old Ottoman Empire. 

 2. Sir Vincent Fean – British consul general to Jerusalem between 2010 and 2014 – reportedly said the UK should uphold its commitment to helping achieve a two-state solution promised in the Balfour Declaration – if only to prevent radicalization at home – stating

“I firmly believe that this unresolved issue contributes to radicalization in our own country among the Muslim community and if only for that self-interested reason we should think of doing something about it.”

The Balfour Declaration promised no two-state solution.

Islamic State has caused Muslim radicalization in Britain.

3. The Balfour Apology Campaign and the Palestinian Return Centre – protesting the Royal Albert Hall being used to host a Balfour Declaration Centenary event on 7 November – have urged the public to sign a letter containing the following statement:

“The 1917 Balfour Declaration directly caused the 1948 Arab-Israeli War where Israel ethnically cleansed 750,000 Palestinians and then established a state in Palestine.”

The 1948 Arab-Israeli War was directly caused by six Arab armies from Egypt, Syria, Transjordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Iraq invading Palestine in total violation of international law. No invasion – no war.

 4. University of Manchester academic Nick Thoburn grabbed some media space by reportedly saying he was dismayed that the University had allowed a Balfour Declaration commemoration event to take place on its campus – adding for good measure:

"Lord Balfour (declared), chillingly, that Zionism was 'of far profounder import than the desire and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land'" 

Chillingly – our news-grabbing academic selectively misquoted what Lord Balfour actually said:

“The Four Great Powers are committed to Zionism. And Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age-long traditions, in present needs, in future hopes, of far profounder import than the desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land”

Nick appears to have been engaging in deliberate spin.

Nick should be looking for another job outside academia if this is the standard of his intellectual expertise. 

 5. Ambassador Jonathan Allen – UK deputy permanent representative to the UN – told the Security Council on 17 October:

“And let us remember, there are two halves of Balfour, the second half of which has not been fulfilled. There is therefore unfinished business.”

Ambassador Allen was spouting pure unadulterated fiction.

 There are no two halves of the Balfour Declaration.

There is however “unfinished business”: allocating sovereignty in the last remaining 5 per cent of Palestine between Jordan and Israel – the two successor States in Palestine – as was first envisaged by Article 25 of the 1922 League of Nations Mandate for Palestine.

The sooner this business is concluded – the sooner the Arab-Jewish conflict can be resolved.

It surely is time to end 100 years of relentlessly hounding 15 million Jews world-wide and falsely and misleadingly lambasting their tiny Jewish State.

Southern Spewers of Hate

"A toxic anti-Muslim extremist"  That's how the Southern Poverty Law Center characterises women's rights advocate and ex-Muslim Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

That being so, I doubt that the SPLC is going to put this olde tyme southern preacher man on its long and ever more ludicrous list of fomenters of hate, even though his misogyny is egregiously at odds with the SPLC's leftist outlook and with American values.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvZEDu2D_RQ

As this journalist and author Karl Zinsmeister explains in this video by Prager University, the SPLC "bills itself as a watchdog of hate groups" but its own behaviour eloquently challenges that boast:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=qNFNH0lmYdM

And check out this hate-spewing further south, in Auckland, New Zealand to be exact. 

'At a Quds Day event in Auckland, New Zealand, held on June 23, Iranian cleric Hojatoleslam Shafie said that Israel and the Zionist regime "hide behind a fake phenomenon" of the Holocaust and that it was a conspiracy to infiltrate the Islamic countries. He said that Quds Day was established "to deal a powerful punch to the mouth of the cancerous tumor known as evil Israel," and cited Imam Khomeini as saying that "if every Muslim were to spit in the face of Israel, Israel would drown." Iranian diplomat Hormoz Ghahremani, presented at the event as the first secretary of the Iranian Embassy in New Zealand, said that the "sinister phenomena of terrorism and extremism in the region" were "fueled and fanned by the enemies of Islam and the Zionist circles." Community elder Sayed Taghi Derhami said that Israel was a "cancerous tumor" that had to be "surgically removed." The event was organized by the Islamic Ahlulbayt Foundation of New Zealand, in Auckland, and was posted on its YouTube channel.'

Memri.org transcript here

Hat tip: Marvin W.

Watfa Heck, Stephen Sizer?

Our old friend the ex-vicar of Virginia Water, nowadays  CEO of the Israel-bashing Peacemaker Mediators "charity", has been attending a Christian conference in Hong Kong on the theme of "Love Thy Neighbour".

According to the conference's blurb:

"This year’s conference theme is ‘Love Thy Neighbour’ and there is no more relevant time in history than right now to take a fresh look at Jesus' timeless truth. With social, political, racial, and economic issues at stake, we need to be reminded that Mark 12:30-31 is still our greatest call to Worship and Justice.

Across 2 full days, 6 main sessions, 24 workshops, and 8 different workshop streams, we will open up a conversation on the prophetic call we carry to reach out toward the other in compassion, justice, and love.

During the conference we will hear from international justice voices and practitioners in Asia who will explore practically what it might look like to love our neighbours as radically as Jesus did."

Our old friend gave his talk as foreshadowed in his comment beneath the image at right; it can be read on his website.

To quote him here (I've added the links; do please follow the one to Holy Land Trust to get the lowdown on its hostility to Israel and support for BDS):

'I led a workshop on Christian Jihad, the Biblical Basis for Proactive Peacemaking.

Sami Awad of the Holy Land Trust and Peacemaker Mediators Board of Reference member spoke on “Practicing peace in hostile surroundings. Other speakers included Jackie Pullinger, Eugene Cho and Craig Greenfield.'

Sizer has in the past worked strenuously to turn Christian populations in South-East Asia against Christian Zionism.

Sizer during his Hong Kong spiel; squint at the backdrop

For example through translations of his works, so it would not be surprising to learn that he carried on his anti-Israel proselytism while attending the conference.

I believe, incidentally, that the Beijing authorities rejected his application for a visa to China, probably owing to their crackdown on Christians.

As CEO of Peacemaker Mediators Sizer is no less peripatetic than he was as the spiritual leader of Christ Church, Virginia Water.  (It seems he'll be coming to the Antipodes next March.)

Nice work if you can get it, as one of his followers pointed out the other day, with a query to which the vaguest of responses was forthcoming:

More recent smears against Israel include this casual suggestion of racism:

All nations have the right and obligation to decide their own immigration policies, vicar.  How many asylum seekers has your seemingly beloved Iran taken in?

Surely you have read the Book of Job, being a clergyman.  Recall this verse?

“I was eyes to the blind and feet to the lame. I was a father to the poor, and I searched out the cause of him that I did not know” (Job 29:15-17).

Not a word there about the blind, lame, poor or disadvantaged having to be Jewish to qualify for Jewish kindness.

And in the same vein the modern state of Israel performs humanitarian acts large-scale and small to countries and peoples the world over, including citizens of "enemy" nations such as Syria.  Remember when Israel offered aid to your seemingly beloved Iran following an earthquake in 2003?  And the mad mullahs, preferring to let their citizens suffer rather than be aided by the Zionist Entity,  turned the offer down?

Meanwhile, the Corbynista Sizer's anti-Israel activism proceeds apace:

And as seen here he continues his requited love affair with the Iranian regime's propagandistic satellite channel Press TV:

Watfa heck, vicar?

Surely you have missed David Collier's revelations about Inminds' Sandra here

I mean, you and your Peacemakers Mediators chums don't want to have anything to do with persons who post memes like this one (see Collier's post for more).

Or do you?

(Meanwhile:

Sick?  Oh, I wouldn't say that...  Just a tad fourth form ...)

“Did You Pray for the Killing of the Jews?”

From a very recent issue of the Toronto Star: 

 '.... Ayman Elkasrawy got the phone call late on a Sunday night in February. An incredulous friend was on the line, with a strange and troubling question.

“Did you pray for the killing of the Jews?”

The friend sent him an online article about Masjid Toronto, the downtown mosque where Elkasrawy worked as an assistant imam. It included a video: rows of Muslim worshippers standing under fluorescent lights, their eyes closed and hands cupped. At the front of the crowded room was Elkasrawy, dressed in white and praying to God in Arabic.

“O Allah! Count their number; slay them one by one and spare not one of them,” read the article’s translation of his prayers. “O Allah! Purify Al-Aqsa mosque from the filth of the Jews!”

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42L1K0tgXxY

Elkasrawy remembered the scene, filmed during Ramadan eight months earlier. He also remembered praying for Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque, a bitterly contested holy site.

But he was shaken by the English translation. “I was surprised,” he says. “When I (saw) that, I even doubted myself. Did I say that?” ....

At a time when white supremacists are mobilizing across North America, the fight against anti-Semitism has taken on renewed urgency. But this is a story that is far more tangled than it first appeared.

It is about an imam who made hurtful mistakes that he could not adequately explain. But it is also about the slipperiness of language — especially in a climate of viral misinformation, polarized debate and geopolitical conflicts that have found fresh battlegrounds in Canada.

Elkasrawy’s prayers were undeniably problematic, but they were also distorted to fit a certain narrative that gave his words added potency amid rising anti-Islamic sentiment.

In a controversy that hinges on his words, a central question was never fully investigated: Did Elkasrawy really say Jews were filth? Did he really call for them to be killed?

According to several Arabic experts contacted by the Star, the answer is no....'

Read the entire article here

And that's plenty good enough for the Canadian Jewish leader Bernie Farber, an inveterate leftwing champion of Muslims and fighter against "islamophobia", apparently.

But islamosceptic Canadian blogger Vlad Tepes isn't taking that "No" at face value:

"Let's see if it is a mistranslation or not."

 See his conclusions, and Robert Spencer's, here

David Singer: Balfour Declaration Centenary Shames Arab and UN Deniers

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

He writes:

The continuing Arab refusal – aided and abetted by the United Nations – to recognise the international legitimacy of the Balfour Declaration 100 years after it was first issued on 2 November 1917 – remain the greatest obstacles to resolving the Jewish–Arab conflict.

The current Arab culprits are the Arab League, the PLO and Hamas who unconditionally reject the binding international legal validity of the Balfour Declaration. However their efforts to nullify the Balfour Declaration would have been undermined long ago had the United Nations not lent its support by propagating a fictitious narrative of the Jewish-Arab conflict.

United Nations involvement has occurred through the “Division for Palestinian Rights of the United Nations Secretariat for, and under the guidance of, the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People” which has published “The Origins and Evolution of the Palestine Problem 1917-1988” containing numerous false and misleading facts on the Jewish-Arab conflict which remain uncorrected.

The Balfour Declaration – when issued – was merely a “declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations” having no binding legal effect – since “Palestine” was still then part of Turkey’s Ottoman Empire and had been so for the previous 400 years.

The Balfour Declaration first gained international endorsement following Turkey’s defeat in World War 1 when the Treaty of Sevres – concluding a truce with Turkey – was signed on 10 August 1920 by:

1. The British Empire, France, Italy and Japan (“The Principal Allied Powers”)

2. Armenia, Belgium, Greece, the Hedjaz, Poland, Portugal, Roumania, the Serb-Croat-Slovene State and Czechoslovakia (constituting with the Principal Allied Powers “the Allied Powers”) and 

3. Turkey

Article 95 of the Treaty provided for:

“the administration of Palestine, within such boundaries as may be determined by the Principal Allied Powers, to a Mandatory to be selected by the said Powers. The Mandatory will be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on November 2, 1917, by the British Government, and adopted by the other Allied Powers, in favour of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”

This acceptance of the Balfour Declaration by the Allied Powers was subsequently embraced by all 51 member countries of the League of Nations on 24 July 1922 – when the terms of the Balfour Declaration were incorporated in the preamble to the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine
Those 51 countries were:

Albania, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, British India, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, El Salvador, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Italy, Japan, Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, Latvia, Liberia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Persia, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Republic of China, Romania, Siam, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Union of South Africa, United Kingdom, Uruguay, and Venezuela.

Article 25 of the Mandate was subsequently invoked on 23 September 1922 to restrict the Jewish National Home to just 22 per cent of the territory encompassed by the Mandate – whilst the remaining 78 per cent eventually became an Arabs-only, Jew-free State in 1946 – now called Jordan.

The Jews reluctantly accepted these decisions – but the Arabs never have. The Arabs (with the exception of Jordan and Egypt) still claim 100 per cent of former Palestine by refusing to recognise the Jewish State.

Peace cannot occur until the UN demands Arab recognition of the Balfour Declaration. The UN’s continuing refusal to do so is truly shameful.

Strictly Satire

Read all about it here

Notley on the Niqab

The Canadian province of Quebec is banning face coverings on public transport and other public service providers such as public libraries.

See videos here and here

Ontario's "feminist" premier Kathleen Wynne is aghast at this affront to "diversity" and "progress" (see video here), but what takes the cake is the mealy-mouthed reaction of Alberta's premier Rachel Notley, put on the spot (and rightly) by a reporter who asks what she, as a feminist, thinks of the niqab.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=6644EjI6mlw

Bonjour Sagesse! "These Lands Are Our Home; We Have No Other"

From the British philosopher Sir Roger Scruton and other European intellectuals, the so-called Paris Statement regarding the current malaise of Europe and what must be done to overset it.  ( "We ask all Europeans to join us in rejecting the utopian fantasy of a multicultural world without borders")

Inter alia (emphasis added), from a long and heartfelt document which deserves to be read and pondered in its entirety:

"Europe belongs to us, and we belong to Europe. These lands are our home; we have no other. The reasons we hold Europe dear exceed our ability to explain or justify our loyalty. It is a matter of shared histories, hopes and loves. It is a matter of accustomed ways, of moments of pathos and pain. It is a matter of inspiring experiences of reconciliation and the promise of a shared future. Ordinary landscapes and events are charged with special meaning—for us, but not for others. Home is a place where things are familiar, and where we are recognized, however far we have wandered. This is the real Europe, our precious and irreplaceable civilization....

The patrons of the false Europe are bewitched by superstitions of inevitable progress. They believe that History is on their side, and this faith makes them haughty and disdainful, unable to acknowledge the defects in the post-national, post-cultural world they are constructing. Moreover, they are ignorant of the true sources of the humane decencies they themselves hold dear—as do we. They ignore, even repudiate the Christian roots of Europe. At the same time they take great care not to offend Muslims, who they imagine will cheerfully adopt their secular, multicultural outlook. Sunk in prejudice, superstition and ignorance, and blinded by vain, self-congratulating visions of a utopian future, the false Europe reflexively stifles dissent. This is done, of course, in the name of freedom and tolerance....

 The true Europe is at risk because of the suffocating grip that the false Europe has over our imaginations. Our nations and shared culture are being hollowed out by illusions and self-deceptions about what Europe is and should be. We pledge to resist this threat to our future. We will defend, sustain and champion the real Europe, the Europe to which we all in truth belong....

As the nation states of Europe became more established and distinct, a shared European identity became stronger. In the aftermath of the terrible bloodshed of the world wars in the first half of the twentieth century, we emerged with an even greater resolve to honor our shared heritage. This testifies to the depth and power of Europe as a civilization that is cosmopolitan in a proper sense. We do not seek the imposed, enforced unity of empire. Instead, European cosmopolitanism recognizes that patriotic love and civic loyalty open out to a wider world....

 The true Europe has been marked by Christianity.... The autonomy of what we call civil society became a characteristic feature of European life. Moreover, the Christian Gospel does not deliver a comprehensive divine law, and thus the diversity of the secular laws of the nations may be affirmed and honoured without threat to our European unity. It is no accident that the decline of Christian faith in Europe has been accompanied by renewed efforts to establish political unity—an empire of money and regulations, covered with sentiments of pseudo-religious universalism, that is being constructed by the European Union....

The true Europe has never been perfect. The proponents of the false Europe are not wrong to seek development and reform, and there is much that has been accomplished since 1945 and 1989 that we should cherish and honor. Our shared life is an ongoing project, not an ossified inheritance. But the future of Europe rests in renewed loyalty to our best traditions, not a spurious universalism demanding forgetfulness and self-repudiation. Europe did not begin with the Enlightenment. Our beloved home will not be fulfilled with the European Union. The real Europe is, and always will be, a community of nations at once insular, sometimes fiercely so, and yet united by a spiritual legacy that, together, we debate, develop, share—and love....The true Europe is in jeopardy. The achievements of popular sovereignty, resistance to empire, cosmopolitanism capable of civic love, the Christian legacy of humane and dignified life, a living engagement with our Classical inheritance—all this is slipping away. As the patrons of the false Europe construct their faux Christendom of universal human rights, we are losing our home....

 The false Europe also boasts of an unprecedented commitment to equality. It claims to promote non-discrimination and the inclusion of all races, religions and identities. Here, genuine progress has been made, but a utopian detachment from reality has taken hold. Over the past generation, Europe has pursued a grand project of multiculturalism. To demand or even promote the assimilation of Muslim newcomers to our manners and mores, much less to our religion, has been thought a gross injustice. A commitment to equality, we have been told, demands that we abjure any hint that we believe our culture superior. Paradoxically, Europe’s multicultural enterprise, which denies the Christian roots of Europe, trades on the Christian ideal of universal charity in an exaggerated and unsustainable form. It requires from the European peoples a saintly degree of self-abnegation. We are to affirm the very colonization of our homelands and the demise of our culture as Europe’s great twenty-first century glory—a collective act of self-sacrifice for the sake of some new global community of peace and prosperity that is being born.

 There is a great deal of bad faith in this thinking. Most in our governing classes doubtless presume the superiority of European culture—which must not be affirmed in public in ways that might offend immigrants. Given that superiority, they think that assimilation will happen naturally, and quickly. In an ironic echo of the imperialist thinking of old, Europe’s governing classes presume that, somehow, by the laws of nature or of history, ‘they’ will necessarily become like ‘us’—and it is inconceivable that the reverse might be true. In the meantime, official multiculturalism has been deployed as a therapeutic tool for managing the unfortunate but ‘temporary’ cultural tensions....

Today, Europe is dominated by an aimless materialism that seems unable to motivate men and women to have children and form families. A culture of repudiation deprives the next generation of a sense of identity. Some of our countries have regions in which Muslims live with an informal autonomy from local laws, as if they were colonialists rather than fellow members of our nations. Individualism isolates us one from another. Globalization transforms the life prospects of millions. When challenged, our governing classes say that they are merely working to accommodate the inevitable, adjusting to implacable necessities. No other course is possible, and it is irrational to resist. Things cannot be otherwise. Those who object are said to suffer nostalgia—for which they deserve moral condemnation as racists or fascists. As social divisions and civic distrust become more apparent, European public life grows angrier, more rancourous, and no one can say where it will end. We must not continue down this path. We need to throw off the tyranny of the false Europe. There is an alternative....

In this moment, we ask all Europeans to join us in rejecting the utopian fantasy of a multicultural world without borders. We rightly love our homelands, and we seek to hand on to our children every noble thing that we have ourselves received as our patrimony. As Europeans, we also share a common heritage, and this heritage asks us to live together in peace as a Europe of nations. Let us renew national sovereignty, and recover the dignity of a shared political responsibility for Europe’s future."

Philippe Bénéton (France); Rémi Brague (France); Chantal Delsol (France); Roman Joch (Česko); Lánczi András (Magyarország); Ryszard Legutko (Polska); Roger Scruton (United Kingdom); Robert Spaemann (Deutschland); Bart Jan Spruyt (Nederland); Matthias Storme (België)

Read the entire statement here

"This is a Conflict About ...an Exterminatory Attempt to Destroy the Jewish Homeland" (video)

From Jerusalem, on 27 September, Marvellous Melanie talks to Australian journalists Rowan Dean (read his recent pro-Israel remarks here) and Ross Cameron on Sky TV.

The conversation runs from her take on the morally compromised Left through the destructive foolishness of American Jewry's universalistic outlook and thrust ("Jewish values are not universalistic, they are particularist ... they have universalist applications") to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

I wish this 20-minute interview with a wise and courageous woman, a Jewish heroine of our time, could be mandatory viewing for the current crop of leaders of Progressive Judaism in Australia, who seem have hitched their wagon  to every leftist political position going, regardless of the end result. 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=GuTQc9WrAkc

(The sound quality improves after the first few minutes.)

David Singer: America and Israel Quit UNESCO Over “Palestine” Fiasco

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

He writes:

UNESCO’s decision to admit “Palestine” as a member state in 2011 in apparent breach of UNESCO’s own Constitution has come back to bite UNESCO with a vengeance – as America and Israel now give formal notice of their intention to quit UNESCO on 31 December 2018.

State Department Spokesperson Heather Nauert asserted America’s decision was not taken lightly and reflected US concerns with mounting arrears at UNESCO, the need for fundamental reform in the organization, and continuing anti-Israel bias at UNESCO.

American arrears owing for UNESCO dues now total US$550 million.

UNESCO anti-Israel decisions since “Palestine” was admitted to UNESCO membership have included:

1. January 2014 – the cancellation of an exhibition at its Paris headquarters on the Jewish presence in the land of Israel

2. October 2016 – disregarding any Jewish ties to the Temple Mount - only referring to it by its Muslim names – then several weeks later - passing a softer version of the resolution that referred to the Western Wall by its Jewish name - though still ignoring Judaism's ties to the site.

3. May 2017 – UNESCO’s executive committee passing a resolution critical of Israeli conduct in Jerusalem and Gaza.

4. July 2017 – designating Hebron and the two adjoined – shrines at its heart – the Jewish Tomb of the Patriarchs and the Muslim Ibrahimi Mosque  as a "Palestinian World Heritage Site in Danger".

UNESCO appears to have acted outside the terms of its own Constitution in admitting “Palestine” to membership.

That decision was open to possible legal challenge for two reasons:

1. Only states can be admitted to UNESCO under Article II (2) of UNESCO’s Constitution - and “Palestine” was not a state,

2. 129 votes from 193 members were required to admit “Palestine” – not the 107 votes received from those “present and voting”. 14 had voted against, 52 abstained and another 21 were absent from the vote.

UNESCO’s questionable and highly controversial decision should have been referred to the International Court of Justice under Article XIV (2) of UNESCO’s Constitution to determine whether:

1. “Palestine” was a “State” entitled to membership of UNESCO.

2. 129 votes or 107 votes were required for “Palestine’s” admission to UNESCO

UNESCO did not seek this judicial interpretation – which would have cost it US$100000 – even though I presented it with detailed reasons why it should.

Had the International Court ruled “Palestine’s” admission to UNESCO was unlawful – then the American funding tap would have been turned on again five years ago.

Instead UNESCO lobbied the Americans to cough up what amounted to 22 per cent of UNESCO’s annual budget. That lobbying was never going to succeed – since the chances of Congress backing away from America’s domestic law mandating the suspension of funds to any United Nations Agency that accepted the PLO as a full member – outside of negotiations with Israel – was doomed to failure

Australia’s Head of Mission – Ms Gita Kamath – gave Australia’s reasons for its negative vote at the time:

“Our decision to vote against reflects Australia’s strong concern that consideration of Palestinian membership in UNESCO is premature. The matter of Palestinian membership of the UN has recently been placed before the UN Security Council for its consideration. We should allow the United Nations Security Council process to run its course rather than seek first to address this question in different UN fora.

Our decision also reflects our concerns with the possible implications of a successful vote on UNESCO funding.”

UNESCO would not be in the parlous financial straits and ignominious position it finds itself today had its member States heeded Australia’s sage advice.

UNESCO’s foray into the Arab-Jewish conflict has been an unmitigated disaster.

The Evil Empire

Not to mention proxy Hezbollah's activity in Venezuela and Nicaragua ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jLayftxAGU 

Writes  Jonathan Schanzer, a former terrorism finance analyst at the United States Treasury, and a senior vice president at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, inter alia:

'... Decertification ... will plunge Iran and the other parties involved in the nuclear deal into a state of limbo. It will prompt all sides to consider what the deal is worth to them, and what further compromises they may be willing to make to satisfy the national interests of the United States, as laid out by the Trump administration....

...Tehran’s broader efforts to dominate the Middle East are also intensifying. From the deployment of its Revolutionary Guard Corps to far-flung corners of the region to the conscripting of Shiite irregular proxies to fight or hold territory in Syria and Iraq, Iran’s footprint continues to grow.

For American policymakers, Iran’s bid for regional hegemony is just as troubling as its nuclear ambitions. Together, they represent a dual Iranian strategy that cannot be separated, despite the P5+1’s efforts to do so back in 2015. This is why Trump should build on his decertification announcement with the rollout of a new Iran policy that actively counters these activities.

[T]he timing is fortuitous. The administration is slated to complete and roll out its Iran Policy Review by October 31st. If the policy lives up to the hints dropped by senior officials, the United States will once again push back on Iran’s malign behavior. If done right, it will do so wherever possible, and by using every pressure point available....

From there, Washington is also expected to actively target Hezbollah, Iran’s most powerful and active proxy. The Trump administration and Congress have already signaled they will take aim at Hezbollah’s economic interests, while also weakening their positions across the Middle East.

Beyond that, Washington can take further steps to strengthen America’s allies, such as the Sunni Arab states and Israel, who are also willing to challenge Iranian aggression. This could mean greater intelligence-sharing and bilateral cooperation, but could also include new hardware and military capabilities. More broadly, the United States must signal that Iranian threats to its allies will be seen as threats to the United States itself...'

 (Read Schanzer's entire article here)

Yair Lapid (inter alia) exposing lies made in this article by Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif :

'President Trump’s argument that Iran is violating “the spirit of the deal” was met with ridicule and contempt in Iran, but it’s accurate. The goal of the agreement was not to give Iran legitimacy and the ability to increase its involvement in terror and the development of advanced weapons. The agreement was also not intended to allow Iran to threaten America’s allies, principally Saudi Arabia and Israel. If that’s the result of the deal, then cancelling or at least dramatically strengthening the JCPOA must be the right path.Zarif’s article should remind us of the central problem with the Iranian regime—it hasn’t forgone, even for a moment, the desire to turn into a dominant nuclear power and to sow chaos in the Middle East. Its members are sophisticated players and so they understand that the path to achieving their ambitions doesn’t just go through underground reactors but also through the realms of media and diplomacy. That’s their way of buying time and strengthening their position, and they won’t stop until they are stopped.'

Entire article here
See also Hollie McKay's analysis here 
Graphic at top and video: hat tip Vlad Tepes blog

"When the Discussion Opened to the Floor, a pro-Israeli Commentator Spoke ..."

As I noted last week, anti-Israel events are sprouting thick and fast in the countdown to 2 November and the centenary of the Balfour Declaration, with Israel-denouncing Christians doing their share of the participating.

One such event that caught my eye was that held on 7 October  at the British Library.  Sponsored by the anti-Israel Middle East Monitor, it was entitled "Palestine, Britain and the Balfour Declaration 100 Years on".

Professor Avi Shlaim, Emeritus Professor of International Relations at Oxford University, was the keynote speaker, and you can read about the rest of the panelists, and their highly biased offerings, here, where there is also a video and several photos of the event. Begins the account:

 "The grey weather did not deter the hundreds of attendees who arrived early on Saturday morning at the British Library in London to attend MEMO’s conference to commemorate 100 years since the Balfour Declaration. A heavily subscribed event, the conference took a detailed look at Britain’s role in the creation of Israel, past and present, showcasing an alternative narrative to the celebrations promised by British Prime Minister Theresa May.

Attendees were able to purchase books on the Palestinian issue, including those shortlisted for the Palestine Book Awards 2017 and indulge in refreshments before being ushered into the auditorium. They were welcomed by Dr Daud Abdullah, the Director of MEMO, who expressed the importance of recognising the Balfour Declaration for what is was."

Professor Penny Green of Queen Mary’s University of London, chaired the first session, journalist Peter Oborne (notorious for his obsession with Britain's so-called "Israel Lobby") the second, and Corbynista ex-Labour cabinet minister Clare Short [read me here] the third.

"Zionism was a settler colonial movement and the state of Israel its progeny, is a settler colonial state," 

declares that account, inter alia,in effect summarising the conference's thrust.

Note this paragraph:

"Journalist David Cronin [associate editor of the Electronic Intifada, folks], looked at strategies used to oppose the Israeli occupation, namely the use of boycotts. He pointed out that Balfour had an aversion to boycotts, namely because of the powerful symbolic nature that withholding payment presented. He advocated that the international community and Palestinians should harness the power of boycotts to bring about a change in Israel."

And these (emphasis added):

"Dr Jacob Cohen [praised by no less an antisemite than Gilad Atzmon here], who joined the Zionist movement at the age of 16 before leaving it four years later, also praised how the Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) movement had expanded its international influence and hoped that the global community would continue such long-term campaigns. He was heckled during his speech when he accused of Israel of perpetuating conflict in order to receive foreign aid and weapons investment, an argument the majority of the audience applauded.

When the discussion opened to the floor, a pro-Israeli commentator spoke in defence of Israel, alleging that it had made peace with Arab countries, retreated from Gaza and was prepared to sacrifice it’s land for peace. Other questioners spoke positively of the support for the Palestine movement and encouraged all listeners to transform their attendance into activism.

As the attendees filed out of the auditorium, many expressed their gratitude to MEMO for hosting such a comprehensive event that had invited speakers from all over the world, to discuss the origins of an enduring conflict that has affected millions of people."

There he sits, if I'm not mistaken, in the centre of this photo of the audience, that same "pro-Israel commentator", I'll wager, namely the intrepid Jonathan Hoffman (good onya, sir!):

A shot of the event by a certain clerical anti-Israel activist:

 A shot of Mr Hoffman at the conference by Sizer here

(Plenty of antisemitic posts below the line on the account I've linked to show some of the supporters of the event for what they are.)

Incidentally, just when I thought that theological Christian antisemitism was sooooooo last millennium:

Our old friend makes a despicable analogy:

Meanwhile, more mischief here

Oh dear! I do hope that next guest didn't catch our old friend's, um, anti-Zionism!

David Singer: PLO-Hamas Referendum Could Boost Trump Peace Plan

Have you seen this video (English subtitles) from Israelly Cool?  If not, have a look and spread its fame.

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=RRpDGA_ZAtM

Meanwhile, here's the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.

He writes:

There is little hope that reconciliation talks between Hamas and Fatah will end a decade of bitter internecine feuding which has seen a parallel entrenchment of territorial divisions between them in Gaza and the West Bank.

Gazan and West Bank Arab populations will continue to be the victims of this ongoing power play as both groups remain bitterly opposed to recognising Israel as the Jewish National Home.

Elections have not been held since January 2006 when Hamas won a large majority in the new Palestinian parliament trouncing the governing Fatah party.

Since then, conflict between Hamas and Fatah has seen any prospect of the peaceful creation of a second Arab State – in addition to Jordan – in the territory encompassed by the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine – consigned to the diplomatic scrapheap.

Now it seems that Hamas and Fatah are seeking yet again to come to some form of reconciliation  – which will only be about preserving their own organisations and retaining their current powers and privileges and have nothing to do with giving their long-suffering populations any say in their own future.

Clearly whatever game of musical chairs they intend to play – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made Israel’s position very clear – reportedly stating that as part of any reconciliation Hamas must:

1. recognise Israel

2. dismantle Hamas’s military wing and

3. Break off ties with Iran.

Any hope of these conditions being met is a pipe dream. Netanyahu also declared:

“We expect everyone who talks about a peace process to recognize the State of Israel and, of course, the Jewish state. We cannot accept fake reconciliation on the Palestinian side that comes at the expense of our existence.”

Again this is simply not going to happen.

Whatever window dressing occurs between Hamas and Fatah will therefore be of no consequence in resolving the Jewish-Arab conflict or in influencing President Trump to believe that such steps are capable of contributing to the President successfully brokering an end to that 100 years old conflict.

The absence of elections for eleven years has created a void that has had disastrous consequences for the Gazan and West Bank Arab populations – impacting the lives of every single Gazan and West Bank Arab.

The likelihood of free and fair elections continues to be a distant dream.

PLO leader Yasser Arafat – perhaps in an unguarded moment – made the following promise back in May 1983 when interviewed in Middle East Review:

“When the occupied territories are liberated, we will move towards a referendum that will set up constitutionally a framework for special relations between Jordan and liberated Palestine.”

That referendum has failed to materialise despite the fact that since 2007:

1. Hamas has controlled 100% of Gaza and its entire population

2. The PLO – of which Fatah is the major member – has controlled 40% of the West Bank within which 95% of the total West Bank Arab population currently reside.

Arafat’s referendum proposal should be implemented – if elections are once again denied.
Holding this referendum would indicate a willingness by both Hamas and Fatah to work towards a peaceful resolution of the Jewish-Arab conflict - working arm in arm with Jordan – rather than continuing their belligerent confrontation with Israel – both militarily and diplomatically – that has marked the last 10 years.

Such a referendum would send a clear signal to President Trump that there could indeed be some possible light at the end of the Gazan terrorist-tunnels – that a framework involving Jordan represents the best possible way forward out of the current impasse.

Seeing the referendum realised remains the challenge for Trump to pursue.

John Bolton on Iran & (UPDATE) South Korea

The USA's former ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton has an important new article here

Unrelated video on that topic below:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V61k-RPkDnw

This too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mr4b3Wp1Nfw

Supping With The Devil: The shame of today's synthetic Sisterhood

Recently, on social media, I was engaged in a rather heated, albeit polite, discussion regarding the wearing of the burqa and whether it has any place in western society.  The topic of a burqa ban (and how racist such a ban's proponents are) had been raised by a staunch feminist who's been president of a non-Orthodox Jewish congregation, is a women's rights crusader and a supporter of the leftist cause generally, including the whole anti-"Islamophobia" shtik.

I vehemently disagreed with her defence of the burqa as apparel that represents a woman's right to choose whatever she wishes to wear.  I pointed out that not only does this humiliating, imprisoning, stifling sunlight-depriving tent represent male ownership and oppression of women, but that it deprives the wearer's unborn babies of vitamin D, and that if animals were made to peer at the world through a muslin grill there would be a general public outcry against cruelty involved.

Needless to say, most (not all) of the commenters on that social media thread, male and female alike, seemed to prefer her position to mine.  (The unborn babies, I was reminded, have the benefit of vitamin D-added cow's milk in bottles.)

I write "needless to say" because the commenters are largely left-leaning and in some cases members of the so-called "Progressive" strand of Judaism, whose 21st-century male and female rabbis and zealots seem keen (riding roughshod over any dissension) to commit that strand to the espousal of every fashionable political cause under the sun, but who, when it's a choice between condemning Islamic misogyny and remaining shtum, will remain shtum or berate as "racist" those who do sprak out.  But the "misogyny" of Orthodox Judaism, especially strictly Orthodox Judaosm?  Fair game, of course.

Read all about this insanity HERE

It's a lamentable characteristic of left-liberals that in "promoting diversity", non-western cultural norms are tolerated, even when they run counter to liberal values and women's rights.  (Just look at the ultra-crazy path paved in whacko Sweden!)

As I've pointed out before, the B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation Commission in Australia was set up originally to fight antisemitism.  But like the ADL in the United States it has expanded its remit to fight all forms of racism and discrimination. And not only that.  It's an avowed promoter of "diversity".  Its logo proudly proclaims so. 

As this splendid article by Nick Cohen in the UK Spectator puts it:

'People talk about their commitment to equality and diversity so readily they must assume there is no conflict between the two. The phrase falls off the tongue as if it were an all-in-one package, and people can ‘celebrate diversity’ and support equal rights without a smidgeon of self-doubt. Until, that is, they have to make a principled choice. Then, whether they admit it or not, they find that they can believe in equality or they can believe in diversity, but they cannot believe in both....' [Emphasis added.]

Read the outrageous facts HERE

As I've pointed out before, the B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation Commission in Australia was set up originally to fight antisemitism.  But like the ADL in the United States it has expanded its remit to fight all forms of racism and discrimination. And not only that.  It's an avowed promoter of "diversity".  Its logo proudly proclaims so.

 But what contradictory positions such an approach can lead to, one of the most obvious being, of course. the loggerheads course between denouncing Islamophobia and championing the rights of women.

 As pointed out by Gavin Mortimer in the Spectator here, there are signs that, in recent atrocities against westerners,  females have been singled out for slaughter:

'....The Islamists are deliberately targeting women because in their minds they represent empowerment and enlightenment, and also immodesty. Three young women were among the eight people stabbed to death during the London Bridge attack in June, and many more were wounded, including an Australian, who  recalled her attacker screamed “Stop living this life” as he slashed at her throat.

 In the hundred years since female emancipation began gaining momentum in the West, there have been significant reactions in the Islamic world. The first was the creation in Egypt of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928, its founder, Imam Hassan al-Banna,  demanding  an “Islamic renewal” faced with creeping Western influence. Al-Banna wasn’t a fan of the West, especially not Mae West, nor Jazz or bobbed haircuts, raging against the importation of “half-naked women into these regions, together with their liquors, their theatres, their dance halls, their amusements, their stories, their newspapers, their novels, their whims.”

One of the Brotherhood’s most influential figures in the post-war period was Sayyid Qutb, an Egyptian who went to the USA on a year’s scholarship in 1949 and returned home radicalised. Another World War had imbued a fresh generation of young western women with confidence and Qutb was disgusted by the female students he encountered in Colorado. He wrote of attending a dance where “the room convulsed with the feverish music…dancing naked legs filled the hall, arms draped around the waists, chests met chests, lips met lips”.'  (See also here)

American feminist Professor Phyllis Chesler is a woman of wisdom and integrity, whose latest article deserves a wide readership.  A feminist since the 1960s who deplores the double standards of today's "feminists", she has much to say on various aspects of the double standards syndrome and its consequences.

Inter alia:

'Our original feminist vision was radical and transformative. We believed in universal human rights. We envisioned multicultural diversity but we were not multicultural relativists....

Like other American radical feminists, I was active in the civil-rights and anti-war movements. Unlike other feminists, I had “once lived in a harem in Afghanistan.” This is the opening line of my book, An American Bride in Kabul. Quite unexpectedly, I lived in a polygamous household in very posh purdah—which meant I was not allowed out without a male escort. Quite surprisingly, my father-in-law had three wives and 21 children—facts my Westernized husband failed to mention during our long American college courtship.

When I was 20, I saw Afghan women stumbling around in burqas—sensory-deprivation isolation chambers, ambulatory body bags. These ghosts were forced to sit at the back of the bus. This was long before the Taliban arose. I remembered that sight even when I critiqued American sexism, racism, homophobia—and imperial overreach....

In the early to late 1970s, I delivered feminist speeches in Israel, began working with Israeli feminists; led a delegation of left-wing and feminist journalists to Israel; obtained signatures opposing the UN’s “Zionism=racism” resolution; co-organized a press conference and then a legendary conference about feminism and anti-Semitism and about women and Judaism; co-founded the first feminist Passover Seder which we held in my Manhattan apartment—and created Jewish-feminist life-cycle events. I also worked with Muslim dissidents and artists from Israel, Egypt, Kuwait, Iran, Lebanon, etc. During this time, I published three more feminist books....

I can tell you that anti-Semitism—Jew-hatred—is not new among feminists. I first encountered it in the early 1970s among radical feminists and lesbians and ... immediately began exposing it.

Read an interview with Phyllis Chesler HERE

However, a new and what I describe as a “faux feminism” has arisen in the last 30 years, a postmodern and postcolonial feminism that passionately condemns Christianity and Judaism as the greatest danger to women’s rights but dares not critique religiously supremacist Islam for this same reason; an intersectional “faux feminism” that condemns only Western imperialism and refuses to acknowledge the long history of Islamic imperialism, colonialism, slavery, anti-black racism, and religious and gender apartheid; a “faux feminism” that is far more concerned with the alleged occupation of Palestine than it is with the occupation of women’s bodies, faces, minds, and genitalia world-wide–including those women who are being forcibly face-veiled, death-threatened, and honor killed in the disputed territories.

Women’s studies associations, national feminist organizations—many feminist Jews—are not merely “politically correct”; they have become “Islamically correct.” They are currently more concerned with the religious sanctity of head and face veiling than they are with FGM, forced face-veiling, honor-based violence, polygamy, child marriage, and honor killing in the West. Not only have faux feminists betrayed the Jews—in the name of anti-racism, they have also abandoned tribal and immigrant women of color—Muslims, Sikhs, and Hindus—to barbaric misogyny. Above all, they have abandoned the most heroic ex-Muslim, Muslim, Sikh, and Hindu feminist dissidents, both in the developing world and in the West.

And that’s the tragedy—that so many Western feminists have become such conformists. They are no longer independent thinkers. Faux feminists have also been persuaded that Islam is a “race,” not an ideology or a religion; that America’s historic enslavement of black Africans, and South Africa’s apartheid regime, is exactly the same as alleged Israeli discrimination against Arab Palestinians, including Jew-hating bomb makers and terrorists with blood on their hands.

Fundamentalists are trying to destroy what feminists have accomplished....

The battle for women’s rights is central to the battle for Western values. It is a necessary part of true democracy. Here, then, is exactly where the greatest battle of the 21st century is joined.

.... Like many people, I had assumed that the world’s hatred of Jews had ended, that Jewish history would never again repeat itself. I was wrong. Those who still believe that Jewish history can never again repeat itself must dispense with that illusion. Jewish history has always repeated itself and may continue to do so until the coming of the Messiah.

One of the things that’s new about the “new” anti-Semitism is that it is coming to us both from the Islamic world and from the Western intelligentsia—and this time it’s global, and 24/7, via videos, the internet, cable vision, doctored footage, etc.

....In 2003, I published the first edition of The New Anti-Semitism. I wrote that anti-Zionism is the new-Anti-Semitism—and I held the Western intelligentsia responsible for their alliance with Islamic-style Jew-hatred. My Berkeley-based editor fought with me about this. Back in 2003, what I was saying was considered heresy. It still is.....'

Read Professor Chesler's entire article here