Pro-Israel Activists Face Anti-Israel Haters in London (video)

A raw and raucous anti-Israel crowd, bolstered by a contingent of Neturei Karta nutjobs (prominent among, if I'm not mistaken, them the chap who marched with Nazim Ali at this event), protest the London visit of Ehud Barak and JW3's interview with him.  But they don't have an easy time of it, for Jonathan Hoffman and other pro-Israel activists, many carrying Israeli flags, have also turned out, and so have a squad of Mr Plods.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCblH8RfDcw

Some days earlier, placard-waving, screeching, chanting and singing Israel-haters vent their spleen outside the Albert Hall, protesting the Israel 70th birthday celebration inside.  "Enjoy your shame?" screams the ubiquitous Sandra at one reveller, whom another protester harangues with the taunt "You support 70 years of terrorism!"  A guitar-strummer sings "We are all Palestinians now" and adds a new one to his repertoire, "Palestine, Where the Olive Trees Die", to the tune of Gershwin's Summertime.  At one point a policeman cops an earful from Sandra, but it's hard to make out.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uF65KlPfvc

(MrAlexSeymour videos)

Lifting the Kurten on Leftwing Hypocrisy (video)

Invoking, inter alia, Labour Party antisemitism and Saudi Arabian antisemitism, a UKIP member of the London Assembly, David Kurten, runs rings around London mayor Sadiq Khan regarding the latter's attitude towards President Trump.

 

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

Hat tip: Vlad Tepes blog

"Too Late to Undo the False, Indeed Poisonous, Impressions":The ABC's apology for Stephen Sizer interview

Remember that insidious Pesach broadcast by the BBC's terrible Australian twin, the ABC, an interview with Stephen Sizer?

Well, in response to this robust protest by Peter Wertheim, the ABC has issued an apology of sorts to the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ).

To quote a media release issued by the latter:

'The ABC has written to the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) apologising for inaccuracies and for the omission of material context that occurred during an interview of Rev Dr Stephen Sizer which was aired on RN Breakfast on Good Friday, and the eve of the Jewish festival of Pesach (Passover), on 30 March 2018.

In a letter to ABC Managing Director, Michelle Guthrie, on 5 April 2018, the ECAJ complained that the interviewer, David Rutledge, had underplayed the gravity of accusations of antisemitism that had been made against Sizer and “projected a generally supportive attitude towards Sizer from the outset, which resulted in a soft interview that allowed Sizer’s self-serving, inaccurate answers to pass unchallenged.”

The ECAJ complaint alleged that “David Rutledge allowed Sizer to get away with claiming that none of the speakers at one of the conferences he addressed in Tehran in 2014 were criticised as antisemitic. In fact, as was reported at the time, the Iranian government-run Press TV described the conference as intending to “unveil the secrets behind the dominance of the Zionist lobby over the US and EU politics”, with one session devoted to examining “Mossad’s role in the 9/11 Coup d’Etat”, and another discussing “9/11 and the Holocaust as pro-Zionist ‘Public myths’ ”. In questioning Sizer, David Rutledge gave only partial information about, and under-played the full extent of, Sizer’s own statements legitimising outlandish conspiracy theories that blame Israel for the September 11 terror attacks in the US. The audience was not informed that the link which Sizer posted on his Facebook page in 2015 was to an article entitled “9/11 Israel did it”, and that Sizer had subsequently publicly apologised for posting it. There was no mention of the fact that Sizer’s Church in the UK had been so embarrassed by his public statements that it had extracted an undertaking from him to stop commenting on the subject while he remained a vicar, an undertaking which Sizer broke.”

In response, the ABC wrote, “The interview included information to indicate that Dr Sizer holds controversial views; is a critic of Israel; at times has been accused of anti-Semitism and that his activities could be used by explicitly anti-Semitic groups. However, Dr Sizer’s mischaracterisation of the Tehran conference which was not challenged or corrected in the interview, together with the lack of information on his repeated censure by his Church was not in keeping with the ABC’s editorial standard for accuracy: the interview did not present these issues with the necessary material context.”

“The program has appended an Editor’s Note to the website and provided relevant links to further information (http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/good-friday-8:05/9601212). ThThe ABC apologises for this lapse and would like to assure you that this finding has been discussed with the program area and RN management, and a summary will be published on the ABC website”

The following note has now been included on the page of the ABC website that relates to the program that was aired on ABC RN on 30 March 2018: 

“NOTE: Presenter David Rutledge acknowledged to the audience that Dr Sizer’s views are controversial, that he has been accused of anti-Semitism and that he attended a conference in Tehran in 2014, which has been criticized for including speakers with anti-Semitic affiliations. However, the ABC accepts that the interview did not provide sufficient context for listeners to adequately understand the extent of the controversies. The ABC acknowledges that the Tehran conference did include anti-Semitic elements, and information on the Anglican Church’s censure of Dr Sizer can be found here.”'

Commenting on the ABC response, ECAJ co-CEO Peter Wertheim welcomed the ABC’s acknowledgement of inaccuracies and omission of material context, and its apology, but added, “Sadly, this will come too late to undo the false, indeed poisonous, impressions given to many ABC listeners to the program who heard the interview but will not be aware of the ABC’s admission of error and apology”.

“The ABC has also failed to appreciate the gravity of the wrong done when David Rutledge took it upon himself to tell Sizer, and the audience, “I accept you are not an antisemite”, instead of allowing the audience to draw its own conclusions. The ABC has pointed to David Rutledge’s academic qualifications and said that the ABC’s editorial standards permitted him to provide his own analysis. However, David Rutledge provided no analysis at all, only his own unsupported assertion. There is a big difference.”

Wertheim also criticised the ABC’s failure to address specifically the ECAJ’s complaint that “the ABC audience is surely entitled to know what Christian Zionism is from the point of view of a knowledgeable and articulate exponent, not merely from the point of view of a harsh and discredited critic”.

“We are now considering pursuing these unresolved aspects of our complaint with the Australian Communications and Media Authority”, he concluded. [Emphasis added]

Mr (and Ms) Plod Abet the Maiden Tribute of Modern Britain

William Thomas Stead (1849-1912), was a prominent British journalist whose series of articles in the Pall Mall Gazette under the heading 'The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon' exposed the horrible sexual exploitation of and traffic in vulnerable underage girls by seemingly respectable members of Victorian society shocked the nation and led to the passage of the Criminal Law Amendment Act (1885).

StephenYaxley-Lennon (b. 1982), better known as Tommy Robinson, a working class lad with in some respects a rather controversial past, is a 'citizen journalist' who was livestreaming outside Leeds Crown Court three days ago when he was arrested by a group of Mr and Ms Plods, charged with causing a 'breach of the peace', and thrown in the slammer the very same day. 

In his footage he was focusing on that dastardly maiden tribute of modern Britain, the grooming and gang-rape of non-Muslim girls (mainly but not entirely white girls) by men whose cultural heritage is that of backward tribal societies so steeped in primitive misogyny that wives are routinely beaten for producing daughters instead of sons and females are gang-raped at the behest of village elders to atone for the misdeeds of male members of their families.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9Z4YYIx_oI

As I mentioned here, Mohammed Shafiq, head of the Manchester-based Ramadhan Foundation, declared (to his credit) some years ago:

"There is a significant problem for the British Pakistani community, there is an over-representation amongst recent convictions in the crime of on-street grooming, there should be no silence in addressing the issue of race as this is central to the actions of these criminals.

They think that white teenage girls are worthless and can be abused without a second thought; it is this sort of behaviour that is bringing shame on our community.

I urge the police and the councils not to be frightened to address this issue, there is a strong lesson that you cannot ignore race or be over sensitive."

 And Nazir Afzal, Chief Crown Prosecutor for North West England, is on record as saying that such men  'think that women are some lesser beings'.

As journalist Allison Pearson, when writing about the terrible case in Rochdale some years ago, has noted of the official British 'softly softly approach' to Muslim gang-rape culture:

'When it comes to women’s rights, not all cultures are created equal, particularly those whose attitudes are frozen some time in the mid‑14th century. But we weren’t allowed to say that. Actually, we weren’t even allowed to think that. If you inhaled enough toleration of the intolerable, then you were well on your way to the opium of political correctness.

The layers of denial run so deep that it’s important to try to be clear where we can. First, it is an insult to Hindus, Sikhs and decent, integrated Muslims to classify those brutes under the catch-all title of “Asian males”. All but one are Pakistani Muslims who come from a patriarchal peasant culture that obviously regards young white British girls as easy meat. Those children were considered fair game for degrading sexual acts on an almost industrial scale. The men took a calculated gamble that no one gave a damn about the girls. And you know the worst thing? They were right.

The number of adolescents “passed around” like a congenial hookah pipe by the gang is believed to be more than 50. There were 631 documented cases of abuse over a five-year period, and many will have been too afraid to tell their story. Some may not even be alive to tell it. We will never know the full extent of their pain.'

And here's the great Douglas Murray, speaking last year (hat tip: Vlad Tepes blog):

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

Tragically for girls and women, and tragically for free speech and justice, that is the state of Britain today.

Had W.T. Stead not gone down with the Titanic he would doubtless be rolling in his grave.

In Oz, A "Hatchet Job on Israel"

A "hatchet job on Israel".  That's the way Danny Lamm, president of the Zionist Federation of Australia, justifiably described an execrable report, "Holy Real Estate", by Tom Steinfort on Channel Nine's Sixty Minutes current affairs show last Sunday evening, which, incidentally, aired in the week that Labor frontbencher Anthony Albanese spewed some of his wonted anti-Israel propaganda  

A searing analysis of Steinfort's biased reportage, and a very able demolition job on the program, has been written by Australian Jewish News journalist Rebecca Davis here

Meanwhile,

from members of this Facebook group a hatchet job on Israel of a most sustained and despicable kind.  A selection of images posted by group members:

.

.

Whacko conspiracy theories laced with raw antisemitism.

Hardly the sort of company an Anglican priest should be keeping, but, lo and behold, one apparently is: none other than that Sydney associate of Stephen Sizer, Father Dave Smith, one of Sizer's cronies on the Peacemakers Trust organisation and the man who coordinated Sizer's recent trip Down Under.

Hamas's Leftist Fans Squawk in London (videos)

Last week, in Whitehall, with their ugly Jew Israel-hatred: Greens, Sinn Fein, Socialist Workers ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chT--70aMBo

(A Mr Alex Seymour video)

Especially repulsive, indeed vomitous, obscene: this female rabbi and her cohorts in the leftist Jewish group Yachad saying Kaddish (the mourner's prayer of sanctification) for Hamas operatives:

 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOKXQPFN8hY

Watch a great video here in response to Linda Sarsour's lies!

David Singer: Israel Condemns PLO Lies as Trump Contemplates PLO Demise

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

He writes:

The historic opening of the American Embassy in Jerusalem has provided opportunities for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to totally discredit the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and President Trump to review the PLO as a suitable Arab interlocutor to negotiate  with Israel on ending the Jewish-Arab conflict.

Addressing the large gathering of American dignitaries and Israeli public figures, Netanyahu declared:

“The truth and peace are interconnected. A peace that is built on lies will crash on the rocks of Middle Eastern reality. You can only build peace on truth, and the truth is that Jerusalem has been and will always be the capital of the Jewish people, the  capital of the Jewish state” 

 PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas didn’t take very long to reply with an outburst against America that seriously questions the fitness of the PLO to resume negotiations with Israel since the PLO walk-out in April 2014:

“What we saw in Jerusalem today was not the opening of an embassy, but the opening of an American settlement outpost. Before we had settlement outposts with American help, but today we have an American settlement outpost in East Jerusalem.”

The rift between Trump and Abbas just continues to widen.

Not content with this salvo – Abbas claimed that the United States:

“has removed itself from the political work in the Middle East as a mediator. It’s no longer an arbiter”  

President Trump would not take kindly to this latest rejection by the PLO of America’s decades-old role as sole mediator in any negotiations aimed at resolving a dispute that has gone on for 100 years.

For Israel – it was just the latest shot in a litany of lies that had its genesis in the 1964 Charter of the PLO – subsequently revised in 1968 – which still remain unamended despite false claims to the contrary.

The 1964 Charter had stated in Article 24:

“This Organisation does not exercise any regional sovereignty over the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, on the Gaza Strip or the Himmah Area. Its activities will be on the national popular level in the liberational, organisational, political and financial fields.”

Yet the 1968 Charter deleted this clause after Jordan and Egypt’s 19 years-occupation of these territories was ended in 1967.

The PLO had suddenly discovered an inalienable right to regional sovereignty in every square meter of these areas. Amazingly this claim has been swallowed hook line and sinker by the United Nations.
Such a recent claim is certainly novel and now must be weighed against Israel’s claim – whose roots in these territories were established 3000 years ago and can be visibly verified in 2018.

The biggest PLO lies are contained in Article 20 of the 1968 Charter: 

“The Balfour Declaration, the Mandate for Palestine, and everything that has been based upon them, are deemed null and void. Claims of historical or religious ties of Jews with Palestine are incompatible with the facts of history and the true conception of what constitutes statehood. Judaism, being a religion, is not an independent nationality. Nor do Jews constitute a single nation with an identity of its own; they are citizens of the states to which they belong.” 

These lies have driven the PLO campaign to wipe Israel off the face of the map rather than negotiate a division of former Palestine where sovereignty in 78% is already vested in Jordan and 17% in Israel –  the last  5% still remaining unallocated between Arabs and Jews

These PLO lies should have been shredded decades ago. They have proved to be the greatest obstacle to peace between Israel and the PLO.

(Author’s note: The cartoon – commissioned exclusively for this article—is by Yaakov Kirschen aka “Dry Bones”- one of Israel’s foremost political and social commentators – whose cartoons have graced the columns of Israeli and international media publications for decades. His cartoons can be viewed here)

Anti-Israel Hate in New York City (video)

Hear the hysteria!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaKvFK5UcAo

"We Use Live Rounds When ... Necessary to Protect Our People"

Jon Snow grills Israel's Ambassador to the Court of St James Mark Regev:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cuv7dnMf2Tg

Colonel Richard Kemp, meanwhile:

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

Western Weasels Mark the "Naqba" (videos)

BDS Quebec, with a gaggle of Neturei Karta nutjobs, out on the streets demonising Israel:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9w1ppuaeGg

And in Ireland, Israel-haters with familiar chants:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blGF5QWsplY

David Singer: Macron, Merkel and May Should Adopt Trump Policy on Jerusalem

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

He writes:

The opening of the American Embassy on 14 May in Israel’s capital – Jerusalem – should be replicated by fellow-democracies France, Germany and The United Kingdom (“the Democratic Trio”) without delay.

President Trump’s policy on Jerusalem was set out by him on 6 December 2017 (“the Trump Declaration”): 

“STATUS OF JERUSALEM: President Trump recognises that specific boundaries of sovereignty in Jerusalem is highly sensitive and subject to final status negotiations.  

President Trump recognises that the status of Jerusalem is a highly sensitive issue, but he does not think the peace process is aided by ignoring the simple truth that Jerusalem is home to Israel’s legislature, supreme court, President, and Prime Minister.

President Trump recognises that the specific boundaries of Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem are subject to final status negotiations between the parties.  

President Trump reaffirms United States support for the status quo at the Temple Mount, also known as Haram al Sharif.”

This policy should be perfectly acceptable to the Democratic Trio – yet they have so far baulked at following Trump’s principled stance.

French President Emmanuel Macron has adopted the following position:

“The status of Jerusalem is a question of international security that concerns the entire international community. The status of Jerusalem must be determined by Israelis and Palestinians in the framework of negotiations under the auspices of the United Nations”

Waiting for these stars to align is like hoping to win the lottery.The Trump Declaration provides sufficient guarantees to ensure that should Macron’s wish-list ever eventuate – the United Nations will be sufficiently seized of the situation to ensure the status of Jerusalem is finally determined between Arabs and Jews.

Refusing to move the French Embassy to Israel’s designated capital now – whilst negotiations to determine Jerusalem’s future have been suspended by the Palestine Liberation Organisation since April 2014 – is bowing to the dictates and diplomatic blackmail of an illegal and undemocratic entity.

France – a bastion of democracy – is being incredibly naïve in not following in the footsteps of the Trump Declaration.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has issued a public statement assuring Germany will not relocate its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem:

“We have to work for the two-state solution, and according to that, the status of Jerusalem should be clarified.”

The “two-state solution” has been the subject of unsuccessful negotiations for the last 25 years.

East Jerusalem was never suggested or declared as the capital of Jordan or another independent Arab state during the years between 1948 and 1967 when East Jerusalem was:

Illegally occupied by Jordan;

All Jews living there were forcibly expelled from their homes;

Centuries-old synagogues and Jewish cemeteries were desecrated and destroyed;

Jews were denied access to their remaining holy sites

Merkel needs to reject this dark period in Jerusalem’s history by adopting the reality expressed in the Trump Declaration.

Britain’s prime minister Theresa May has stated:

“We disagree with the US decision to move its embassy to Jerusalem and recognise Jerusalem as the Israeli capital before a final status agreement. The British Embassy to Israel is based in Tel Aviv, and we have no plans to move”

Moving the United Kingdom’s Embassy to West Jerusalem on the identical basis enunciated by Trump will not prejudice future negotiations between Jews and Arabs to resolve East  Jerusalem’s final status.

France, Germany and the United Kingdom need to get on the Trump bandwagon and move their Embassies to Israel’s declared capital – Jerusalem –  following  their own worldwide well-established diplomatic practices and precedents.

Disagreements between democracies play into the hands of unelected and unaccountable regimes.Bowing to these regimes’ unjust and unreasonable demands is a sure-fire recipe for disaster.

(Author’s note: The cartoon – commissioned exclusively for this article—is by Yaakov Kirschen aka “Dry Bones”- one of Israel’s foremost political and social commentators –  whose cartoons have graced the columns of Israeli and international media publications for decades. His cartoons can be viewed here)

In London, A Tonge-Lashing for Pro-Israel Protesters (video)

Outside the Israeli Embassy in London on 11 May, an anti-Israel "Solidarity With Gaza" rally staged by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (and others) is challenged by vociferous pro-Israel counter-demonstrators.

At 8:50 on the video enter, stage right, none other than the loathsome Baroness (Jenny) Tonge, whose tongue-lashing of the pro-Israel crowd is barely audible, since they all but drown her out.

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

Video by Alex Seymour aka Seymour Alexander (whose sentiments regarding this event are, of course, very different from mine).

Meanwhile, in the Emerald Isle:

Well, Flamin' Kites! Corbynista Shadow Minister Makes "Three Solemn Guarantees"

From IDF video

Emily Thornberry, a lawyer and Labour MP for Islington South and Finsbury, who's Corbyn's Shadow Foreign Secretary, has been the focus of my blog once before.

Last week she posted the following rosy-eyed declaration on Facebook:

"I had the privilege these past few days of representing the Labour Party at the conference of the Palestinian National Council in Ramallah, the PNC’s first official meeting in more than two decades, and one that comes at a crucial time.

The recent actions of the Netanyahu and Trump governments have displayed a blatant contempt for the interests of peace in the Middle East and the chances of making progress towards a two-state solution.

From the Netanyahu government, that includes the expansion of illegal settlements, the crippling blockade against Gaza, the brutal and lethal suppression of protests on the Gaza border, and the unlawful detention and ill-treatment of Palestinian children.

And from the Trump administration, it includes the reckless and irresponsible decision to relocate the US embassy to Jerusalem, and the cruel cuts in funding for the UN agencies providing healthcare, education and humanitarian relief to Palestinian refugees.

In response, some rogue Palestinian voices have urged its leadership to abandon all peace talks, reject a two-state solution, and return to the hopeless tactics of armed struggle, which would only cause more bloodshed and fear on all sides.

However, during my two days at the Palestinian National Council, I found firm rejection of that approach. Yes, there was considerable anger – which I shared – particularly at recent events on the Gaza border, the devastating humanitarian crisis caused by the blockade, and the wilful aggravation of tensions and hardship by the Trump administration.

But despite that, there were strong and unanimous declarations that this was no time to succumb to exhaustion and despair, but instead to re-state more clearly than ever their commitment to a two-state solution, with a viable, secure Palestine living alongside a secure Israel, both sides recognising each other’s right to exist, and to live in peace.

It was recognised that remained not just the right course of action from a principled and practical standpoint, but also the right thing to do in the court of international opinion, and the best way to put moral pressure on the international community to act.

And it was on the latter point that I provided my hosts with strong reassurance that – if they stuck to the path of peace – they would receive strong support from the British Labour Party, and from a future Labour government, and I made three solemn guarantees of the action we would take as soon as we are in office again.

First, as we rightly mark this month the 70th anniversary of the foundation of the State of Israel, I said it is also right – and long overdue – for the United Kingdom to formally recognise the State of Palestine, and urge other countries to do the same, not in due course, not when the time is right, but now and without delay.

Second, I said that as a matter of urgency, a Labour government would host an international funding conference to address the humanitarian needs of the Palestinian people, and the millions of Palestinian refugees across the region, in particular to plug the gaps in funding caused by Donald Trump’s cruel and spiteful cuts.

And third, I said a Labour government in Britain would immediately review the sale of arms by the United Kingdom to Israel to ensure that none of the weapons sold by our country are being used by the Netanyahu government to attack innocent Palestinian civilians in Gaza or anywhere else.

But it was not just in London that I said a future Labour government would make a difference, but in New York, at meetings of the United Nations, and in Washington DC, in our talks with the Trump administration.

At the UN, I said we would be a constant voice on the Security Council urging action when Israel breaks international law, and exposing the hypocrisy of the United States and others who demand tough action and independent investigations when other countries break those laws, but turn a blind eye when it comes to the Netanyahu government.

I told them we would say out loud that it shames the United Nations, and the Security Council, that – for decades – successive Israeli governments have been allowed to ignore, with impunity, all the resolutions the UN has passed with regards to the Occupied Territories and the expansion of illegal settlements.

And finally, in New York, I said we would also demand a new independent investigation into the Netanyahu government’s breaches of international law when it comes to the detention, ill-treatment and unfair prosecution of Palestinian children, an issue on which we have already led the way in demanding action in the UK Parliament.

We have also led the way since the day Donald Trump was elected in demanding that the UK government stands up to his reckless and damaging policies, especially when it comes to Israel and Palestine. It was not good enough for the Tories just to say they disagreed with Trump over his Jerusalem move, they should have condemned him for doing so.

And while we of course want to see the resumption of meaningful peace talks, I said President Abbas had been quite right to argue that the Trump administration cannot act as a mediator for peace when they themselves are sowing the seeds of discord, and making a negotiated peace ever harder to achieve....' [Emphasis added]

It's wonderful to see so many pro-Israel people responding, with comments such as:

"[H]ow many Palestinian Arabs live in Israel? 1.8 million. How many Jews live in Jordan? Zero! How many Jews live in Gaza? Zero! Where in Israel can Jews be arrested for praying? The Temple Mount!"

"Whose  [sic] going to deliver this secular, democratic state with equal rights for all? Hamas and the Naturei Karta guys?"

 'You should be publicly apologising for attending such a conference where nothing but antisemitic garbage was spewed out by a holocaust denier. You should be ashamed to represent the British people. I'm sure you applauded when Abbas claimed that the holocaust and anti semitism were caused by Jewish "social function". Disgusting.'

"This is ACTUALLY what's happening at the Hamas led 'Great March of Return', Emily Thornberry, you gullible fool..."https://www.facebook.com/StandWithUs/videos/10155650800537689/

 "Does she not understand that help and materials sent from Israel to Gaza has been used to buy more weopens [sic] and materials that could have been used to improve their lives have been used to build tunnels to get into Israel. She hasn't deemed to have grasped that until the Palestinians accept Israel's right to exist there will never be peace. Why hasn't she condemned the so called peaceful protest from Pallestinians [sic] which Hamas and Hezbollah have encouraged. Would she happily accept other people to encroach on our borders? No doubt Labour would not mind if they were antisemitics."

 "Were an Arab state to declare war on Israel, the Palestinians would take the opportunity to uprise, and it would none of it end well. The Israelis would be well within their rights to drastically change their current rules of engagement. There is no scenario which does not play out badly for the Palestinians, who are being used as pawns by the Arab states."

As for the IDF, this tribute to the past 70 years is rather satisfying.

David Singer: PLO Dumps Trump Easing Way for Jordan-Israel Negotiations

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

He writes:

President Trump’s soon-to-released proposal on resolving the Jewish-Arab conflict will be more readily achievable following the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) confirming it will not participate in implementing Trump’s peace plans.

Secretary General of the PLO Executive Committee Saeb Erekat led the charge:

“No one will deceive us and we will not fall into the illusion that the United States can have any balanced ideas that could lead to the achievement of a real and just peace. Washington has become part of the problem and not the solution”

PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas backed-up Erekat a few days later  – censuring Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and stating  Palestinians believe the US can no longer be the sole mediator in the decades-long conflict with Israel due to America’s pro-Tel Aviv bias.

Abbas declared Trump’s plan would be:

     “an end to the peace process in the Middle East”

Erekat and Abbas’s acts of  political hara-kiri coincided with Trump’s newly-appointed Secretary of State – Mike Pompeo – visiting Jordan

Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi welcomed Pompeo with the decades-old Arab mantra:

“[The Palestinian -Israeli conflict]  is, we believe, the main cause of instability in the region, and its resolution is the key to achieving the lasting and comprehensive peace that we want. The two-state solution remains the only path to that peace, as we believe in Jordan, and it is the solution that would allow for the emergence of an independent, sovereign Palestine state with East Jerusalem as its capital in the lines of June 4, 1967.

Yes, that – the two-state solution is being challenged. Yes, there are many obstacles. But I think what is – what is the alternative? We cannot give up in our efforts to achieve peace, nor can we say that there is any viable alternative that we can sustain.”

Pompeo begged to disagree:

“ We’re certainly open to a two-party solution. That’s a likely outcome.”

Another likely outcome will doubtless be revealed in Trump’s proposal.
Pompeo deferred answering whether the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was the most serious threat to stability in the region. He would have been derided had he agreed – given the conflicts in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon and Libya.

On Trump’s ultimate deal – Pompeo asserted: 

“We understand that ultimately this deal will be agreed to between the Israelis and the Palestinians, but certainly it’s the case that as America continues to be involved in facilitating such an arrangement, we’re doing so in close alignment with Jordan and the Jordanian people so that we’re working together …”

Any PLO refusal to agree to the deal will receive the Trump treatment meted out to Trump-defiers – reduced funding and diplomatic downgrading. Jordan – working in close alignment with Trump – will reap substantial dividends.

Pompeo referred to the five-year Memorandum of Understanding signed by the United States and Jordan in February  committing the US to provide over $6.3 billion in bilateral foreign assistance to Jordan over the next five years – a powerful incentive for Jordan to help Trump bring his proposals to fruition.

Pompeo –  significantly – provided two additional substantial sweeteners: 

“We’ll continue to work with Jordan to help the Kingdom defend its borders, always.”

Pompeo was signaling that any PLO attempt to overthrow 95 years of unbroken Hashemite rule in Jordan – unsuccessfully attempted by the PLO in September 1970 – would be rebuffed by American military force.
Protecting the Hashemite regime and Jordan’s borders  –  coupled with massive injections of American financial aid – could see  Jordan replacing the PLO as  Israel’s Arab partner in implementing Trump’s peace proposals.
Trump – the master deal-maker – may  have just pulled another rabbit out of his magic hat.
(Author’s note: The cartoon – commissioned exclusively for this article – is by Yaakov Kirschen aka “Dry Bones” – one of Israel’s foremost political and social commentators –  whose cartoons have graced the columns of Israeli and international media publications for decades.)

Sizer Hertz

How myriad are the ways in which Israel-haters try to undermine the Jewish People's time-honoured associations with Eretz Israel by seeking to prove that there was a sovereign state of Palestine that the Jews stole from the, um, autonomous "Palestinians".

As I've showed several times on this blog a number of artefacts have been trotted out by the ill-willed and the ignorant to "prove" the absurd and shameful thesis: 17th, 18th and 19th century maps marked "Palestine", the "Palestinian" bird, coins, postage stamps, an orchestra, a newspaper, an airline, and a football team  ...

All this, despite the fact that so many of those developments were initiatives of the Yishuv, in other words the Jewish community of Mandate Palestine, and others, of course, of the Mandatory power, Great Britain, itself.

As a man of the cloth our old friend the ex-vicar of Virginia Water cannot be ignorant of the fact that the Romans imposed the name Palestine on Eretz Israel in order to drive home the fact that they had conquered the Jewish homeland and to eradicate the name Judea.

Still, he's posted about that airline (the above screenshot dates to 2014), and now he's endeavouring, it would appear, to recruit a one-liner by the great Joseph Herman Hertz (1872-1946), Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the UK and the Commonwealth from 1913 until his death, to undermine the Jews' claim to Eretz Israel.

Voilà!

It hurts, it must do, for a man (Sizer) who must know better to pretend to be quite that stupid! The reward must be in watching his followers lap it up.

Obviously, Hertz used the term "Palestine" because it was the term prevalent in his day.  He was not giving the nod to the anti-Zionist cause.  Far from it.

Sizer's trotted out the wrong man in Chief Rabbi Hertz, that's for sure.  As ably and succinctly put here:

 'Whilst many in the Orthodox world stood aloof from Zionism, Hertz was a robust champion of the cause. In answer to leaders of the organized community who were opposed, Hertz brought the prestige of his office to bear on the side of Zionism.

On May 28, 1917 he wrote a letter to The Times in which he rejected the notion that the recent attack in the newspaper on Zionism by Claude Montefiore of the Anglo-Jewish Association and David Alexander of the Board of Deputies reflected “the views held by Anglo-Jewry as a whole or by the Jewries of the overseas dominions.”

On October 6, 1917 the War Cabinet led by Prime Minister David Lloyd George decided to send out the ‎draft of a planned government statement about a Jewish homeland in Palestine to eight Jews—four anti-Zionists and four Zionists—for ‎comment.

Chief Rabbi Hertz, along with Lord Walter Rothschild and Zionist statesmen Nahum Sokolow and Chaim Weizmann all submitted supporting letters. ‎

Hertz was associated with the Mizrachi Orthodox stream of Zionism which saw the return of the Jewish people to Palestine as part of a Divine plan. In worldly affairs he criticized the British Government’s Mandatory policies as a reversal of the spirit of the Balfour Declaration.

A frequent visitor to Palestine, Hertz took part in the 1925 opening of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem on Mount Scopus. He went on to serve on the university’s Board of Governors.'

And lest the CEO of the so-called Peacemaker Trust tries to claim that he stands for the Two State Solution, he doesn't, as certain posts of his I've drawn attention to in the past, and this current post, show. 

This, by the way, is not the first article from the antisemitic Mondoweiss site to which our old friend has linked, and it's already not his last.

Posh Spite?

As we see here, Mahmoud Abbas, who's already on record as denying the Holocaust, has made despicable remarks regarding Jews in a long rambling speech:

Part of it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1tATSiX_wI

I happened to notice this exchange on Facebook regarding Mahmoud Abbas's remarks between Professor Kamel Hawwash of the University of Birmingham in the UK and one Giles Leveson-Gower, whose posh surname (pronounced Looson-Gore) grabbed my attention because I'm a naval history buff and John Leveson-Gower was a well-known officer in George III's Navy.

And then I remembered that some of the Leveson-Gowers benefitted from, er, land occupation and a sort of, um, ethnic cleansing.

Remember reading in the history books about the dastardly Highland Clearances (1811-20) that dispossessed thousands of Scottish crofters, forcing many of them in desperation into exile across the Atlantic, and Down Under too?

Who was one of the principal architects of the Highlanders' forced evictions?

Why, none other than the snooty-looking chap above, aristocratic and plutocratic English MP Granville Leveson-Gower (eldest son of the first Marquess of Stafford), who added to his already abundant riches when in 1785 he married the Scottish Countess of Sutherland in her own right and then conceived the idea of moving the peasantry, ending up as the first Duke of Sutherland.

Ah, well.

Funny old world innit.

Bibi Discloses Iran's Nuclear Goals (video)

Bibi on the incriminating evidence:

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