David Singer: False Narrative haunts PLO and UN as Trump courts Arab States

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

He writes:

Nabil Abu Rudeineh – spokesman for Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas – has angrily reacted to President Trump’s intensive diplomatic efforts seeking to enlist Egypt, Jordan, Qatar and Saudi Arabia in advancing Trump’s long-awaited “deal of the century” to end the Arab-Jewish conflict. Rudeineh fulminated: 

“The American delegation should abandon the illusion that creating false facts and falsifying history are going to help it sell those illusions.”

Creating false facts and falsifying history has been the province of the PLO and the United Nations (UN) for decades.

The 1968 PLO Charter declared the 1917 Balfour Declaration, the 1922 Mandate for Palestine and everything subsequently based on them to be null and void.

The United Nations publication “The Origins and Evolution of the Palestine Problem 1917-1988” (“Study”) – published by 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 – falsely claimed: 

"After investigating various alternatives the United Nations proposed the partitioning of Palestine into two independent States, one Palestinian Arab and the other Jewish…”  

The UN proposal – Resolution 181(II) – actually referred to: 

"Independent Arab and Jewish States”…

Resolution 181(II) clearly denied the existence of any distinctly identifiable Palestinian people in 1947 – yet the Study falsified this narrative.

The Study also omitted to mention that 78% of Palestine had already become an independent Arab State in 1946 and been renamed the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan.

Creating a separate state for the “Palestinians” - never identified as a separate people by the international community in 1947 – is seen by that same international community in 2018 to be the only solution capable of ending the conflict between Jews and Arabs.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Two peoples – the Jews and the Arabs – already have their own independent States in former Palestine – named Israel and Jordan. Rudeineh continued: 

"Despite the burden of regional issues, there are things that cannot be weighed with gold and humanitarian aid, or solutions that try to cut from a more than 100-year-old historical conflict."

This is the first time the PLO has ever acknowledged that the Jewish-Arab conflict originated in the events following the Balfour Declaration in 1917 – not the events following the 1948 Arab-Israel War. UN Secretary-General Guterres helped perpetuate this falsehood when recently referring to the “Israeli/Palestinian conflict”.

There were no “Israelis” or “Palestinians” 95 years ago when the preamble to the Mandate for Palestine declared: 

“Whereas the Principal Allied Powers have also agreed that the Mandatory should be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on November 2nd, 1917, by the Government of His Britannic Majesty, and adopted by the said Powers, in favor of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing should be done which might 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''

British reversal of this policy in 1922 saw Transjordan – today called Jordan – totally closed to Jewish settlement to prevent the reconstitution of the Jewish National Home there. The 1937 Peel Commission counted for nothing.

Forty crucial years in Palestine’s history until 1948 were shredded by the PLO and materially altered by the UN Study in propagating the “Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People”.

Rudeineh’s statements mark a welcome return to reality.

Getting other Arab interlocutors to replace the PLO in negotiations with Israel remains Trump’s crucial starting point to ending the Arab-Jewish conflict.

(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 at Drybonesblog)

"We Don't Think Multiculturalism is by Definition Good" (video)

So explains Hungary's foreign minister in this interview with the BBC's hectoring Emily Maitlis, who, reflecting the arrogant leftism and islamophilia of that broadcaster, treats him as if he's less a studio guest than a prisoner in the dock.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8itF62yIJg

The Camel Corps Gets the Hump

The prince and the president Photo: Amos Ben Gershom

“It has been a profoundly moving experience to visit Yad Vashem today. It is almost impossible to comprehend this appalling event in history.  Every name, photograph and memory recorded here is a tragic reminder of the unimaginable human cost of the Holocaust and of the immense loss suffered by the Jewish people.  The story of the Holocaust is one of darkness and despair, questioning humanity itself.  But the actions of those few, who took great risks to help others, are a reminder of the human capacity for love and hope.   I am honoured that my own great-grandmother [Prince Philip's mother, Princess Alice] is one of these Righteous Among the Nations.
We must never forget the Holocaust – the murder of 6 million men, women and children, simply because they were Jewish. We all have a responsibility to remember and to teach future generations about the horrors of the past so that they can never reoccur.  May the millions of Jewish people remembered by Yad Vashem never be forgotten“

That's what Prince William has written during his visit to Yad Vashem.  In this video he meets descendents of Jews saved by Princess Alice: report here

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdcJvonQL4Y

For President Rivlin's meeting with the prince see here

Meanwhile: 

'William of Arabia, aka the Duke of Cambridge, heads out to dusty Ramallah tomorrow to meet the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas. It’s a remarkable encounter for the second-in-line to the throne and not just because the Palestinian is a nasty piece of work (doctoral dissertation: “The secret relationship between Nazism and Zionism”). The sheer political sensitivity of an official trip to modern Israel and to the Palestinian Authority on the West Bank is such that no member of the royal family has ever undertaken it.

A shift in geopolitics has made the visit possible — and a cultural change in the Foreign Office, which has for many decades advised the royal household that it is better to don the appropriate headgear and butter up Arab autocrats than engage with the gritty detail of the Israeli-Palestinian relationship. The fear of giving offence to princelings has been the defining trait of the so-called camel corps of Britain’s Arab enthusiasts within the Foreign Office. It has, with flanking assistance from oil men and aerospace executives, become an almost institutional lobby that sees Israel as the troublemaker of the region and Arab leaders as being deeply misunderstood. [Emphasis added here and below]

The result: a skewed view of the Middle East that has left Britain so often wrong-footed by an unexpected crisis; a war, a revolution, a putsch that others had spotted in the making. Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait? Didn’t see it coming. The 2011 Arab Spring? A complete surprise.

For a long time I bought into the mystique of Britain’s Arabist expertise, and saw Israel’s concern about the camel corps simply as irrational suspicion of London’s motives dating back to the days of the Mandate. Did we not have plenty of informal contacts with Israel, a lively exchange of intelligence about its hostile neighbours, about the Soviet bloc and even about fugitive Nazis? And as for the royal family, they came often enough to Israel on private visits. Both Prince Philip and Prince Charles have been to visit the grave of Princess Alice on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, honoured for her role in hiding a Jewish family in German-occupied Athens. William too will pay tribute to his great-grandmother.'

 Thus wrote The Times of London's diplomatic editor Roger Boyes in that newspaper's 26 June issue.

'So why the fuss? Surely it was not that Britain was snubbing Israel but merely that the establishment was engaged in straightforward mercantilism, tapping oil money to keep jobs alive in Derby. Yet the camel corps is not a fata morgana. Young diplomats selected for early Arabic language training bond and follow intertwined career paths. There are 22 Arab language missions; even if the dips have to interrupt with a stint in Brussels or Washington, the Middle East pulls them back. A romantic vision of the Arab world translated until recently into a sense that Palestinians have drawn the short straw. And that Israel is gaming the West and the Americans in particular.

The Foreign Office advises the royal household on the political suitability of trips. No surprise then when in 2007 an email exchange between two courtiers was leaked amidst a discussion of a possible trip by Prince Charles to Israel. “Safe to assume there is no chance of this visit ever actually happening? Acceptance would make it hard to avoid the many ways in which Israel would want HRH to burnish its international image.”

The fear of undue Israeli influence over a fickle US president runs way back, to the foundation of a training centre in the hills above Beirut, the Middle Eastern Centre for Arabic Studies (Mecas). Originally set up in Jerusalem, it was moved to Lebanon in 1948 and its instructors were either Arabs deeply affected by the nakba, the enforced exodus of Palestinians from the new emerging state of Israel, or colonial-era British administrators in sympathy with them. Students, some of them not so long out of Oxbridge, found themselves living with simple Arab families.

It was dubbed locally the School of Spies and there were a few. Mark Allen, who was later in contention to become head of MI6 and who later still was drawn into a scandal about the treatment of interrogated suspects in Colonel Gaddafi’s prisons, studied there. He had kept a falcon while a schoolboy at Downside, went on to hunt with Bedouins and was pretty much a typical product of Mecas. Many emerged as experts not only on dialects but also tribal structures.

Even after Mecas shut down in 1978, its ethos continued. No matter that the young diplomats had spent their evenings watching Lebanese or Egyptian soap operas on flickering televisions, the deep undercurrents of Arab civilisation had to be respected, Arab grievances had to be taken seriously, even fetishised, if peace was to be achieved. It was a world view in which Israel was a disruptor of the natural order.

There’s no mistaking the anger simmering among Britain’s Arabists. Donald Trump’s relocation of the US embassy to Jerusalem, the support for Israeli settlements, the strength of the connection between Bibi Netanyahu and the president: all this turned their world upside down. The fact is the caravan has moved on. The Sunni Gulf Arabs share a common enemy with Israel: Iran. And the Palestinians are becoming a source of irritation for many Arab governments rather than a holy cause. When Israeli soldiers opened fire on Hamas-inspired protesters at the Gaza-Israel border wall last month, there was some official Arab grumbling but no serious political bust-up. The threat of Iran has become the overriding threat and Hamas receives Iranian support.

This has left Britain out of step. It sticks with European Union support for the Iran nuclear deal which, since the US withdrawal, is already dead in the water. Like the rest of the EU, it will keep its embassy in Tel Aviv rather than Jerusalem. These positions will have to yield to new realities. And the camel corps will have to adapt or be put out to pasture.'

"#Palestine and #Syria are Reasons for Our Misery"

In Iran, much brave dissent against the cruel and corrupt regime of the mullahs:

For many related videos see here

This footage by Memri-org:

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

American Iranians react:

In London, a Sparse Anti-Israel Demo by Old Codgers in Paper Aprons (video)

It looks like the London-based anti-Israel organisation InMinds (the In is short for "Innovative", apparently) couldn't manage more than a few old codgers when it staged a demo a few days ago outside the British capital's European Commission offices ranting on about the Israeli diamond trade.

The familiar Sandra Watfa was not on hand to lead the propaganda, so her sidekick, the plummy-voiced woman whose party piece it used to be to jump aboard Tube trains and subject the passengers to Israel-demonising "poetry", did the honours instead.

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmeTUl47Hdw

The posters that she and the two elderly gents shown on this Alex Seymour/Seymour Alexander video have at first glance the look of aprons, and that logo, given its position in relation to their anatomy, rather comical ...

The video is introduced by a new background lyric and ends with a more familiar one ...

David Singer: Jordan Baulks at Replacing PLO in Negotiations with Israel on Trump Plan

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

He writes:

President Trump’s long-awaited plan on ending the Arab-Israeli conflict will be further delayed following a flurry of diplomatic activity over the past week.

Critical to the success of Trump’s plan will involve replacing the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) as Israel’s negotiating partner over the last 25 years. The PLO has cut its own throat by making it very clear it will have nothing to do with anything Trump proposes.

Trump’s Senior Advisor Jared Kushner and Special Representative for International Negotiations Jason Greenblatt met in New York City on 15 June with United States Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley and United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres. The White House reported they had a productive discussion about the efforts of the United States to promote peace in the Middle East and to meet humanitarian needs in Gaza.

This UN visit was followed by Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flying to Amman for a public meeting with Jordan’s King Abdullah on June 18 – their first since 2014. Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi, General Intelligence Department Director Maj. Gen. Adnan Jundi, Adviser to His Majesty and Director of the Office of His Majesty Manar Dabbas and Adviser to His Majesty for Economic Affairs Mohamad Al Ississ attended the meeting.

Communiques separately issued by Netanyahu and Abdullah following their meeting differ significantly. Netanyahu’s communique was very brief stating they had discussed:

“regional developments and advancing the peace process, and bilateral relations. Prime Minister Netanyahu reiterated Israel’s commitment to maintaining the status quo at the holy sites in Jerusalem” 

Abdullah’s communique was far more expansive and revealing: 

“His Majesty King Abdullah, at a meeting on Monday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who departed Jordan after a short visit, stressed the need to make progress in efforts to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict on the basis of the two-state solution and in accordance with international law, relevant UN resolutions, and the Arab Peace Initiative.

King Abdullah reaffirmed that the only way to achieve peace and stability in the region is by reaching a two-state solution and the establishment of a Palestinian state on the 4 June 1967 lines with East Jerusalem as its capital, living side by side with Israel in peace and security.”

Abdullah was mouthing the mantra articulated by the PLO over the last 25 years during unsuccessful negotiations with Israel. Trump has little chance of seeing his own “ultimate deal” come to fruition if Jordan replaces the PLO propagating this same failed objective.

Abdullah’s communique continued:

“The King affirmed that Jordan will continue upholding its historical role in safeguarding Islamic and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem, in accordance with the Hashemite Custodianship.”

 The Washington Declaration signed by Israel and Jordan on 25 July 1994 respected:

“the present role of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in the Muslim Holy Shrines in Jerusalem. When negotiations on the permanent status will take place, Israel will give high priority to the Jordanian historic role in these shrines.”

Extending Jordan’s custodianship to the Christian holy sites is presumptuous of Abdullah and flies in the face of the Washington Declaration. Kushner and Greenblatt met Abdullah on 19 June – when the King stood his ground repeating almost verbatim the above statements made to Netanyahu just the day before.

Trump – the consummate deal maker – will probably delay releasing his plan until Abdullah agrees to negotiate with Israel on recovering land lost in the 1967 Six Day War by Jordan to Israel in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) Abdullah would be a brave man continuing to defy Trump when the King visits the White House on 25 June.

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

"War Has Been Declared. Its Agents Must Be Answered ..."

Er, ever heard of Arab Rejectionism?

Onward Christian soldiers!  That's the title of a well-known hymn, and that, in essence, is the call of call a Christian supporter of Israel, Brian Schrauger, in a call, as it were, to arms.

Writes Brian Schrauger, inter alia:

 'Since 2010, the "Christ at the Checkpoint" conference has only been in Bethlehem. Last week organizers announced they are going global. What must Christians who stand with Israel know and do to counter "Christ at the Checkpoint" and its declaration of war against them?....

“There simply is no biblical basis for Christian Zionism,” says conference organizer Munther Isaac. He made this assertion in 2016 and did so as a pastor, Bible professor and theologian.

At the CatC conference in 2016, the hired gun to assault Christian Zionism was the so-called ‘Bible Answer Man,’ Hank Hanegraaff from the US.

Not only is the ethnicity of today’s Jews dubious, said Hanegraaff, Christian Zionists are directly responsible for what he called Jewish Zionism’s “murder, terrorism and ethnic cleansing in 1948.” Moreover, he asserted, all talk of a third Temple (as per the prophet Ezekiel) is “nonsense.”

In fact, said author and historian Robert Smith this year, all forms, all expressions of Christian Zionism lack ethical integrity. Hence there is no ethical common ground for discussing any of their arguments with them. 

Little wonder that the number one written objective of CatC this year was “to challenge the theology of Christian Zionism.”....  

When the conference kicked off on Monday evening, the keynote speaker was Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malik. Speaking in the place of President Mahmoud Abbas, he declared that Jesus was crucified because he was a Palestinian, then proceeded to eviscerate Israel and US President Donald Trump. 

Every CatC leader was there. They fawned and applauded and patted al-Malik on the back. Then, wrapped in Christian lingo, they re-asserted all of his key points. 

Later in the week an unscheduled representative of the PA appeared at the podium. Her powerpoint presentation was a gatling gun declaration of the PA’s explicit anti-Israel narrative, vilifying it as a criminal enterprise. ....

One of the main ways CatC and its advocates disarm evangelical opposition is by seducing it.

Pleading for love and unity, it relentlessly argues for Israel as an essentially criminal entity. Advocates for Israel who buy the seduction are persuaded that silence in the face of these assertions are necessary expressions of Christian love and unity.

Another seduction is using weapons from an entire armory of rhetorical accusations. The accusations against evangelicals who stand with Israel include charges of one-sided prejudice, lack of compassion, divisiveness, blindness, political motivation and, although the word itself is never spoken, heresy. 

Perhaps the most effective seduction is various use of “bait and switch” appeals. Like a salesman who gets his mark to say yes about things unrelated to his real objective, CatC does the same. Appealing to evangelical sensibilities and expressions, those who participate, standing with raised hands and bowed heads, invariably find themselves in that same posture as anti-Israel invective is proclaimed as gospel truth.

This happened at the very start of this year’s CatC. Asking attendees to stand for an opening prayer, the program immediately proceeded to the ‘Palestinian National Anthem.’ Asked to remain standing, everyone apparently did. Refusing to stand for the prayer, I was spared the embarrassment of having to sit in the face of an anthem that declares, 

Warrior, warrior, warrior, ...

Meanwhile, in London, an undisguised aim

I will live as a warrior, I will remain a warrior, I will die as a warrior - until my country returns Warrior!

.... Never, ever, let down your guard at this event or others like it—including a increasing array of services at local churches.

Go global

CatC’s leadership and advocates are already taking their attack to evangelicals around the world. Apart from the West, they are all-but entirely unopposed. War has been declared. Its agents must be answered. They must be opposed.

Everywhere.

Especially in such a time as this.'

[Emphasis added]

Read the entire article here

Exposing The Arab Narrative's "Inversion of Reality"

Click HERE

Ahead of Prince William's visit next week to Jordan, Israel and the areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority Marvellous Melanie reminds us  of nefarious Foreign and Commonwealth Office manipulation in the matter via semantics.

Inter alia, she writes:

'Britain is implying that the Old City of Jerusalem, which houses the holiest sites in Judaism and Christianity, belongs as of right to the “Palestinians” and is illegitimately “occupied” by Israel. (That may be the inescapable logic of Britain’s position, but it normally sidesteps this most sensitive of implications). Worse still, it appears that the UK government is also saying that the Western Wall – the retaining wall of the ancient Jewish Temple, one of the most sacred places in Judaism – also belongs as of right to the “Palestinians”.... 

If Israel really has accepted “Britain and the European Union’s definition of east Jerusalem as ‘an occupied Palestinian territory’”, it has made itself complicit in one of the Arab world’s Big Lies. For the issue here is not just about the territorial status of Jerusalem’s Old City and the Western Wall.

There are no “occupied Palestinian territories” because there never were any Palestinian territories at all. There never was a sovereign country called Palestine, and there never were Arabs called Palestinians – until they were invented solely to destroy the Jews’ historic entitlement to the land.

For around four centuries, the lands which now constitute Israel, the West Bank and Gaza were occupied by the Ottoman empire. After the First World War they were administered by Britain under the Palestine Mandate; after the 1948 Arab war of extermination against the new State of Israel the area beyond the ceasefire lines, including east Jerusalem, was illegally occupied by Jordan (which desecrated and ripped up synagogues and ancient Jewish gravestones).

“Occupied Palestinian territories” is quite simply a lie several times over....'

Meanwhile, here's a recent talk by Irving Weisdorf, founder and CEO of The Mozuud Freedom Foundation, at Toronto's Holy Blossom Temple about the "inversion of reality" that characterises the Arab narrative regarding Israel and its history.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32so9SStfsE

David Singer: PLO Rejects Trump Lifeline on Negotiations with Israel

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

He writes:

President Trump – still mulling over the release of his ultimate peace deal to resolve the Arab-Jewish conflict – has seen the swift rejection of the call by Jason D. Greenblatt – Trump’s Special Representative for International Negotiations – to have Dr Saeb Erekat replaced as chief negotiator for the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) in future negotiations with Israel.

Greenblatt raised America’s objection to Erekat in stark and uncompromising terms – alleging Erekat

- failed to contribute to an atmosphere conducive to peace

 - used rhetoric and made claims that were in many respects simply inaccurate

 - had baselessly claimed that Trump’s decision to move the American Embassy to Jerusalem was part of a U.S. attempt to force an Israeli-written agreement on the Palestinians.

  - had failed to acknowledge a significant escalation of rockets fired by Hamas and other militant groups into Israel, which clearly represented the danger that Hamas and these groups present.

Greenblatt asserted that the Palestinian leadership need not shackle themselves to Hamas’s failure – in fact, this should be the Palestinian Authority’s opportunity to do the right thing for the people they lead.

Greenblatt called on Erekat and the Palestinian Authority to reject Hamas’s violence and lies and work with America to bring relief to Gaza where America believed real progress could be made that would lay the foundation for a more hopeful future.

Greenblatt’s reference to the “Palestinian Authority” was strange indeed – since it had been disbanded by written decree issued by PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas on 3 January 2013.

Greenblatt stressed it was time to stop indulging in overwrought rhetoric and give the Palestinian people something beyond words. Palestinian leadership must create better lives, not sacrifice those lives for Hamas’ grim agenda of terror.

Greenblatt claimed he had heard many Palestinian voices over the past 16 months and many did not agree with Erekat or his approach. Yet, the sad thing is that most would only meet and speak honestly and openly in private because they are afraid to speak publicly.

Greenblatt summed up:

“Dr. Erekat – we have heard your voice for decades and it has not achieved anything close to Palestinian aspirations or anything close to a comprehensive peace agreement. Other Palestinian perspectives might help us finally achieve a comprehensive peace agreement where Palestinian and Israeli lives can be better.

 The time for leadership and responsibility is now. The time for meeting after meeting of government officials repeating the same talking points is over. The Palestinian people want real action, and they need honest, realistic and decisive solutions.

The notion that Israel is going away – or that Jerusalem is not its capital – is a mirage. The notion that the United States is not the critical interlocutor for the peace process is a mirage.”

In a stinging, vitriolic reply Erekat immediately responded:

“In dozens of meetings we had with Mr. Greenblatt he refused to discuss substance: no borders, no settlements, and no two-state solution. Today, his role is nothing less than peddling Israeli policies to a skeptical international community, and then becomes upset when he’s reminded of this.” 

Erekat will remain in his decades-long position unless pulmonary fibrosis prevents him physically discharging his current role. Erekat’s replacement would undoubtedly continue the same failed tactics adopted by Erekat.

Erekat’s predictable response should be seen as yet one more reason justifying Trump’s emerging strategy to replace the PLO with Jordan, Egypt and possibly Saudi Arabia in negotiations with Israel on the future of Gaza, Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) and East Jerusalem.

Rejecting Trump’s proffered lifeline ensures the PLO will play no part in future negotiations on Trump’s ultimate deal.

(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 at Drybonesblog here.)

A Dissenter in the Camel Corps in 1967

Not to be confused with Glasgow-born Sir John Rennie (1917-2002), Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for Palestine Refugees, 1971-77, London-born Sir John [Jack] Ogilvy Rennie (1914-81) was from 1968-71 Director of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) and a Foreign Office diplomat before that.

Here, reproduced in a tweet by Dr James Vaughan, of the Department of International Relations at the University of Aberystwyth, is a rather interesting memo that Rennie addressed in 1967 to Sir Paul (later Baron) Gore-Booth (1909-84), permanent secretary at the Foreign Office from 1965-69.

It seems Dissenting Jack may have been promoted sideways after that!

Stephen Sizer "Very Impressed With the Control of the March Participants"

One of the "apologists"

Some of the haters; see footage here

Note the Hezbollah flag (not thesole representative of its kind carried by marchers) and Neturei Karta's Rabbi Aharon Cohen, like Sizer no stranger to conferences in Teheran.

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

Our old mate the ex-vicar of Virginia Water has got around to putting his Al Quds Day in London 2018 remarks on his personal blog.  He cynically evokes Dr Martin Luther King.

Click on link below the photo:

Shameless Sizer evokes Martin Luther King

For a better insight into our old mate's chutzpah in evoking Dr King see here and here

Some of the vicar's relevant comments:

Oh yeah?:

For David Collier's searing account of the march the vicar extols see here
It comes complete with this video of a woman who baited pro-Israel counter-demonstrators:

Shocked at those taunts, Stephen Sizer?

A madwoman, some people might say.  Uh-huh. But then Julius Streicher was a madman.

"Israel is a Jewish and Democratic State"

An articulate rejection of the Apartheid smear:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78E7m8k9G18

 

"It's Crazy People Screaming ..."

It's people who want the eradication of Israel.

Canadian news anchor Michael Coren and his studio guest nail the nature of Al Quds Day:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWo2bB8XmSM

In London on Al Quds Day, heroic people singing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpIK309FFJI

Toxic Tonge, Heinous Hain & Other Pains

On 7 June members of the House of Lords had four minutes each to address the chamber on the subject of Israel's response to outrages from Gaza on its border, although as Lord Steel's opening remarks (below) show, the sublect up for debate was not phrased that way.

The toxic Baroness Tonge was among the speakers, and the heinous Peter Hain was flexing his anti-Israel muscles again, while pretending to have that country's best interests in mind.

Even some of the more sensible speakers, apparently assuming that the Palestinians are genuine partners for peace, forgetting their history of rejectionism, and the malign influence of Iran's proxies, seemed to think that the fault for the violence lies with Netanyahu and Trump.

Take a look at my post here regarding Hain's history of anti-Israel activity, his espousal of a "secular democratic state" in the 1970s, and his recent return to that position, his chances of becoming Labour Party leader and subsequently prime minister having passed the former Young Liberal firebrand and general pain in the tuchus by.

And then take a look at Hansard for 7 June:

Lord Steel of Aikwood (LibDem; formerly Liberal party leader David Steel)

 My Lords, I put in for the ballot for today’s debate just after the terrible slaughter of 62 Palestinians inside the Gaza fence, which included eight children. I should at the outset ​declare a former interest. I served for seven years as president of the charity Medical Aid for Palestinians—and I am delighted to see that the current president, the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Bolton, is to speak in this debate. During that time I visited Israel, the West Bank and Gaza several times, once touring Gaza just after the Cast Lead operation, when I saw for myself the wanton destruction of hospitals, schools and factories in what was described by David Cameron as one vast prison camp.

Before anyone accuses me of being one-sided, let me also say that I spent an afternoon with the local Israeli MP in the Ashkelon area in the south of that country and fully understand the intolerable life of citizens there threatened by rockets fired by Hamas from inside Gaza.

In fact, long before I got involved with MAP, back in 1981, I first met Yasser Arafat, leader of the PLO, at a time when our Government would not speak to him on the grounds that the PLO was a terrorist organisation refusing to recognise Israel, a mistake that we have repeated with Hamas. As I got to know Arafat over the years, I recognised that he was a brilliant liberation leader but a disappointing failure as head of the Palestinian Administration. Indeed, it was the incompetence and even corruption of that Administration which led to the success of Hamas in the election in Gaza. But those of us who pride ourselves in democracy cannot just give them the cold shoulder because we did not like the result, and yet that is what happened. The lesson of the successful peace process in Northern Ireland should surely have taught us that the only route to peace has to be through dialogue with those we may not like, rather than confrontation.

That brings me to the policy of the current Israeli Government, backed by the United States of America and, sadly, by our own Government. Israel’s great tragedy was the assassination of Prime Minister Rabin, who had been relentless in his pursuit of an agreement with the Palestinians. The current Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is very different. I met him once at a breakfast meeting in Tel Aviv. I admired his obvious ability and indeed swagger. He could, had he so wished, have gone down in history by heading an Administration to pursue a legitimate settlement with the Palestinians based on the 2002 Arab peace initiative, when every member state of the Arab League had offered to recognise Israel and host her embassies in their countries in return for the establishment of a proper Palestinian state. Instead, he has allied himself to the most reactionary forces in the Knesset and come close to destroying any hopes of such an outcome with the growing illegal Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land, the construction of the wall, routed in places condemned even by the Israeli courts, and the encouragement of Donald Trump’s opening of the American embassy in Jerusalem.

It was that last event that provoked the mass demonstration at the Gaza fence, dealt with not by water cannon but with live ammunition from the Israel Defense Forces. That resulted not only in the deaths that I mentioned but in over 3,600 people being injured. One Israeli soldier was wounded. According ​to the World Health Organization, 245 health personnel were injured and 40 ambulances were hit. Last week, Razan al-Najjar, a 21 year-old female volunteer first responder, was killed while carrying out her work with the Palestinian Medical Relief Society. She was clearly wearing first-responder clothing at the time. In the meantime, the Israeli Defense Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, one of the reactionaries to whom I referred a moment ago, has declared that there are “no innocent people” in Gaza, while an UNRWA report declares that the blockade situation is so bad that Gaza is becoming unliveable in.

I do not know whether the Israeli Government know or care about how low they have sunk in world esteem. When I was a student in the 1950s, many of my friends, not just Jewish ones, spent their vacations doing voluntary work in a kibbutz, such was the idealism surrounding the birth of the Israeli state, but that is no longer the case.

The reason I joined the Liberal Democrat Friends of Israel group was that I got fed up with being blamed, as Liberal leader, for the then Government’s Balfour Declaration encouraging the establishment of that state, people forgetting that the famous letter included the words,

“it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine”.

The conduct of its present Government is a clear betrayal of the basis on which the Lloyd George Government welcomed a state of Israel.

I spent some years active in the Anti-Apartheid Movement. Only much later did I realise one noted fact about those who had led the white population’s opposition to apartheid—my dear friend Helen Suzman, Zach de Beer, Harry Oppenheimer, Hilda Bernstein, Ronnie Kasrils, Helen Joseph, Joe Slovo and so many others were predominantly Jewish—which was that they knew where doctrines of racial superiority ultimately and tragically led. I rather hope that the recent slaughter in Gaza will awaken the international conscience to resolute action in the same way that the Sharpeville massacre led to the ultimately successful campaign by anti-apartheid forces worldwide.

The Israeli Government hate that comparison, pointing to the Palestinians who hold Israeli citizenship or sit in the Knesset, but on visits to that beautiful and successful country one cannot help noticing not just the wall but the roads in the West Bank which are usable only by Israelis, just as facilities in the old South Africa were reserved for whites only.

Recently some of us met a couple of Israeli professors in one of our committee rooms. They stressed to us the urgency of staying with UN Security Council Resolution 2334, passed as recently as December 2016, which roundly condemns all the illegal activities of the current Administration. It is worth reminding the House of just three of its 13 clauses, beginning with this one:

“Condemning all measures aimed at altering the demographic composition, character and status of the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, including, inter alia, the construction and expansion of settlements, transfer of ​Israeli settlers, confiscation of land, demolition of homes and displacement of Palestinian civilians, in violation of international humanitarian law”.

A second clause reads:

“Underlines that it will not recognize any changes to the 4 June 1967 lines, including with regard to Jerusalem, other than those agreed by the parties through negotiations”.

A third reads:

“Stresses that the cessation of all Israeli settlement activities is essential for salvaging the two-State solution, and calls for affirmative steps to be taken immediately to reverse the negative trends on the grounds that they are imperilling the two-State solution”.

Those are not my words: they are taken from the UN Security Council. My mind went back to 1967 when, as a young MP, I was present when our then UK representative at the United Nations, Lord Caradon, led the drafting of Resolution 242 which was supposed to be the building block for peace after the Arab/Israeli war. My complaint is that the international community, including successive British Governments, have paid only lip service to that and allowed Israel to defy the United Nations and trample on the rights of the Palestinians.

Soames

But there are signs of hope. The noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, knows how high he is held in the opinion of the House and we cannot expect him as the Minister of State to change United Kingdom policy, but when the Statement on Gaza was made in the other place, two senior and respected Conservative ex-Ministers gave strong voice objecting to our current stance. Sir Nicholas Soames (pictured, Sir Winston Churchill's grandson, pompous, pro-Arab, and notorious for sexist behaviour towards female MPs) hoped that our Foreign Office would,

“indulge in a little less limp response”,

to the,

“wholly unacceptable and excessive use of force”,

 while Sir Hugo Swire said that,

 “one reason it is a festering hellhole and a breeding ground for terrorists is that each and every time there has been an attempt to improve the livelihoods of the Gazans, by doing something about their water … or about their quality of life, Israel has blockaded it”.—[Official Report, Commons, 15/5/18; cols. 140-41.]

We are entitled to ask the Minister to convey to the Prime Minister that she needs to be more forceful, honest and frank when she next meets Mr Netanyahu. Yesterday’s Downing Street briefing said she had,

“been concerned about the loss of Palestinian lives”,

which surely falls into the description of a continuing limp response.

We cannot allow the Israeli Government to treat Palestinian lives as inferior to their own, which is what they consistently do. That is why our Government should not only support the two-state solution, but register our determination and disapproval of their conduct by accepting the decisions of both Houses of our Parliament and indeed the European Parliament and recognise the state of Palestine without further delay.

         ....

Lord Hain (Lab.  If you can't be bothered to click on that aforementioned post of mine, here's a summary: former Young Liberal anti-apartheid South Africa activist and rabid anti-Israel activist, who didn't even concede that persecuted Soviet Jews should have the opportunity to emigrate there.  He advocated the abolition of Israel into a "secular democratic state". Hain later aspired to lead the Labour Party, and was spoken of as a future British prime minister.  But with the scuppering of that chance he's come out again since 2014 in favour of the eradication of Israel.)

My Lords, I am both a long-standing supporter of the Palestinian cause and a friend of Israel. [Ahem!] As a British Minister for the Middle East from 1999 to 2001, I worked closely with both Israeli Government Ministers and Palestinian leaders. My background of fighting apartheid, racism, Islamophobia and anti-Semitism is recorded. For decades I have favoured the internationally supported two-state solution as the best plan for peace and the fairest outcome, but ​is this now in any way feasible? Prime Minister Netanyahu and other members of his Government and MPs have recently spoken out against it, endorsed by the renewed “Greater Israel” discourse of the growing Israeli right calling for the annexation of Palestinian territories. Negotiations between Israeli and Palestinian leaders have failed, as has a reliance on the US to deliver Israeli co-operation. Europeans, meanwhile, have been unable to deliver the settlement freeze they advocate.

Today, the situation of Palestinians living on their own land resembles a harsh civil rights struggle. Gaza is under Israeli siege. Palestinian life in the West Bank and east Jerusalem is untenable because they have little or no say over the running of a land that has increasingly become an archipelago of isolated Palestinian territorial islands in a sea of Israeli-controlled land, checkpoints, bases and settlements. If Israel’s relentless expansion into Palestinian territories cannot be stopped, we face one of two possible outcomes. The first is that all Palestinian presence in the West Bank and east Jerusalem remains in a permanent and ever more formalised “Bantustan” status; islands of minimal self-governance with the continued denial of basic rights, facing perpetual insecurity and possible future physical removal, deprived of full access to water and subject to all manner of restrictions on land rights and free transport across their own territory. The second is that they are absorbed into a common Israeli-Palestinian state with the opportunity for pluralism and human rights advancement.

Tense and difficult though the current standoff may be for Israel, it is not going to be defeated and therefore holds the stronger hand. Would Palestinians, absorbed into their traditional homeland, albeit alongside Jewish citizens with a narrow majority over them, drop their historic grievance and quickly adjust to the new reality? That is optimistic to say the least. But if the window for the two-state solution has indeed closed, should the EU, the US and the UK make it plain to Israel that a one-state alternative may be the only one available to ensure its own security? If so, what guarantees might there be for Jewish citizens both within Israel and worldwide if they agree to this merger? Could the Arab nations join those in the West like the US and the UK to provide the post-World War Two guarantee of “never again”? Could a federal or confederal state provide a way forward, with common security, a unified economy, common civil rights and guarantees of religious freedom for Jews and Muslims, but considerable political autonomy for the territories within it of “Israel” and “Palestine”?

Is it not the blunt truth that we must either undertake a massive social and geographical reverse engineering to re-enable a genuine two-state outcome, with two sovereign independent states based on 1967 lines with equal land swaps—and without all the unreasonable Israeli caveats that drain the Palestinian state of any real meaning—or recognise a common-state reality and make it truly democratic, with enfranchisement and rights for all?

I am making a plea for honesty because it seems that the international community is publicly sheltering behind the policy of a two-state solution, while privately knowing that it has become a convenient mantra rather than a deliverable policy.​

....

Baroness Tonge (Independent Liberal Democrat; Independent because the Lib Dems expelled her for perceived antisemitism)

See here

My Lords I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Steel, on obtaining this debate, but sadly it gives me no pleasure to take part because this matter has gone on for far too long.

It is some 50 years since the Six Day War, when the intentions of the Zionist movement became clear: to carry on expelling and killing Palestinians, and grabbing their land and their homes until the ambition of a greater Israel is achieved from the Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea. It is not fooling us any longer. Our Government have stood by feebly, often abstaining on UN resolutions while slaughter and dispossession continue, bleating about a two-state solution and refusing to recognise the state of Palestine. We recognise Israel, of course we do, but which Israel is that? Where are its borders? What are we recognising? If that is the excuse for not recognising the state of Palestine, it applies to both states, and both states should be recognised as soon as possible, as many noble Lords have said.

The most recent excuse given by the Government for abstaining from UN resolutions and taking no action against the Israeli Government is, of course, the activities of Hamas. Most recently, our Government would not condemn Israel for the killings during the “Great March of Return” in Gaza because Hamas might have had a hand in it. Slings and stones were used against one of the strongest armies in the world with a nuclear arsenal. The Israel Defense Forces were shooting indiscriminately at children and medical personnel, as well as other Gazan people. Shame on them and shame on us for not reacting.

What if Hamas did have a hand in it? What if it did? I would remind this House that the Government of Israel helped to create Hamas. It is the product of Israeli Government policies, not the cause of them. A legitimately elected Hamas Government were prevented from taking office in 2006—never forget that—and we are supposed to be democrats.

Gaza, as we have heard, is a toxic slum and will be uninhabitable by 2020, according to the United Nations. Nearly 2 million people, over half of them youngsters, are being slowly squeezed to death, with no prospects of a future. Of course they protest, and they do so as violently as they are able. Many of them would rather die than continue as they are.

But we say, “It’s not our fault. Balfour was a long time ago. We have to have the international community with us. We cannot do anything”. We listen to the Government of Israel trying to make Iran the object of our attention. We obey our masters in the United States of America, who obey the Israel lobby, as I suggest we do here. Of course, we must listen to the trade gods of Brexit.

For the sake of Jewish people who do not support the present Government in Israel, for the sake of the Palestinians, for the sake of the wider Middle East and for the conscience of our nation, I beg this Government of ours to take action, stop selling arms to Israel, impose sanctions and support justice for Palestine. 

More speeches at link.

Al Quds Day in NYC

Joe Lombardo of the United National AntiWarCoalition claims to be on the right side of history:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3owU2qRqzC4

A female screeching a familiar chant that gives no doubt as to the true aims of the "Al Quds Day" crowd preludes a reedy-voiced Neturei Karta nut, one of those "Torah True Jews" who are so Torah-true that they turn out on Shabbat to spew their vile mendacious nonsense:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgNg-r-jFjo

It's in order to counter the hateful lies spewed by these and other speakers and everyone of their ilk that marvellous Melanie Phillips  has framed ten essential points for reclaiming the narrative on the Middle East. 

Read her here

"One Can See the Demons Reappear"

 The header is a direct quotation from a Holocaust survivor featured in the following video.

                                 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1ESirmMQE4

To quote the uploader, the USC Shoah Foundation:

"USC Shoah Foundation’s Countering Antisemitism Through Testimony Program integrates contemporary personal stories of witnesses to antisemitism into outreach, education and research programs to help counter antisemitism today. This video was screened at the UNESCO launch of policy guidelines to counter antisemitism through education, on June 4, 2018. Newly recorded testimonies from Belgium, Denmark, France, Hungary, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States are being used to engage audiences to develop their understanding of antisemitism as a dangerous form of hate and one of several facets of hatred that threaten all of humanity."

 The UNESCO report begins:

"Anti-Semitism is a security issue for Jewish communities and individuals in regions across the world and the driving force of a range of violent extremist ideologies. Like all forms of intolerance and discrimination, anti-Semitism has a profound impact on the whole of society, undermining democratic values and human rights. In recent years, the changing geopolitical climate and media environment have led to a situation where open anti-Semitism is no longer confined to extremist circles and has become increasingly mainstreamed.

International organizations and national authorities in several countries have developed comprehensive approaches to address the challenge. Despite this, preventing anti-Semitism through education and addressing its manifestations in education environments remains a challenge for policy-makers and educators.

To respond to these challenges, UNESCO has integrated addressing anti-Semitism through education into its activities related to the prevention of violent extremism through education and the promotion of global citizenship. To strengthen these efforts, UNESCO collaborates with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) in the framework of ODIHR’s project “Turning Words into Action to Address Anti-Semitism (link is external)”.  UNESCO contributes to the educational dimension of the project with a view to equip education policymakers with guidelines on this issue. UNESCO and ODIHR work together to identify gaps and promote effective practices, key policies and pedagogies to address anti-Semitism through and in education."

Read the entire report here

UK Antisemitism: Oh, look, Sizer's talking!

I wonder whether the CEO of theegregiously one-sided so-called Peacemaker Trust will be sporting this cool new look when he addresses the predictable band of anti-Israel fiends in London this coming Al Quds Day.

To quote from today's report by Lee Harpin in the Jewish Chronicle:

 '... The Reverend ...  will join notorious anti-Zionist Mick Napier, of the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign, as a speaker at Sunday’s annual demonstration.

Mr Sizer’s presence at the Al Quds Day event will cause widespread anger among Jewish communal organisations and follows last week’s announcement by the Metropolitan Police that they are powerless to stop the flying of the flag of Iranian-led terror organisation Hezbollah on the march.

In December 2015, the Church of England condemned Dr Sizer for sharing material which was “clearly antisemitic”.

Before he became Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn had defended him saying Mr Sizer was being victimised because he “dared to speak out against Zionism.”

Last year, Mr Napier was found guilty of aggressive behaviour at a protest outside an Israeli-owned cosmetics store in Glasgow during the 2014 Gaza war.

Last week, the JC revealed the Met Police, in answer to a letter from MP Louise Ellman, the vice-chair of the Labour Friends of Israel, said that they had to allow the controversial flag to be raised once again at Sunday’s parade because parliament had “consciously chosen” to proscribe only the military wing of Hezbollah – but the group’s flag is “shared across all elements of that organisation.”

Metropolitan Police Commander Jane Conners said in her letter of reply that both she and Commissioner Cressida Dick “share concerns” that the raising of the Hezbollah flag on London’s streets “may be construed as belonging to a terrorist organisation.”

At last year’s Al Quds Day march, the JC revealed  how Nazim Hussein Ali, an Islamic Human Rights Commission speaker,  linked the Grenfell Tower tragedy to “Zionists” and calling for Israel’s annihilation at this year’s Al Quds Day march.

Following complaints about Mr Ali’s conduct – and the open display of Hezbollah flags – the Metropolitan Police confirmed it was investigating allegations of antisemitic comments made during the protest by Mr Ali.

But in December the Crown Prosecution Service had he would not face prosecution.'

I'm not so sure that

'Mr Sizer’s presence at the Al Quds Day event will cause widespread anger among Jewish communal organisations'

 The Jewish Chronicle seems somewhat ill-informed about Sizer (it turned down my screenshot of that notorious 9/11 post telling ms it was not interested, only to have its free London rival, the Jewish News, snap the proferred screenshot up), it seems ignorant of the vicar's proper designation, Dr, and it appears unaware that since he now has no pulpit, he is likely to make him less of a perceived thorn in Anglo-Jewry's side by the latter's communal leaders than if he was under the jurisdiction of a bishop.

Will he reprise this casual outfit, the one he wore when denouncing Israel at the Al Quds Day rally in London six years ago (that's Mr Ali in the background, incidentally)?

 

Or will he go for the full cassock, as favoured by his antipodean chum, Anglican priest Father Dave Smith, on an Al Quds Day Down Under more recently?

 Meanwhile, quick off the mark, the vicar has posted this, put up today by the Amos Trust and other enemies of Israel:

Go here and we find more information about this event:

London Protest Tuesday 5th June

Free Palestine – Stop the Killing – Stop Arming Israel

5.30pm. Assemble Opposite Number 10 Downing Street, Whitehall, London – March to Old Palace Yard.

Organised by: Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Friends of Al-Aqsa, Palestinian Forum in Britain, Muslim Association of Britain.

Supported by: Stop the War Coalition, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Europal Forum, Amos Trust, UNISON, Lib Dem Friends of Palestine, The Green Party.

Join us on this day of solidarity actions for the Great Return March in Palestine, with events around the country.

Please bring Keys with you to symbolise the Nakba and the Right of Return. With respect and in line with the decision of the organisers of the Great Return March in Palestine, to demonstrate full unity, we would like to ask everybody to bring Palestinian flags only.

[Emphasis added.  In other words, leave the Hezbollah flags at home!]

https://www.facebook.com/events/103692723847506/

More info: www.palestinecampaign.org/great-march-return

What a nerve this cleric, who posted this excrescence

and regularly posts such items as this 

should have the chutzpah to criticise people like Jonathan Arkush, the outgoing president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, for voicing concerns about antisemitism.  (Mr Arkush said he was not suggesting the Archbishop “is not a strong and sincere friend of the Jewish people. “My statement in the Telegraph interview was very specific, and referred only to the EnoughIsEnough protest against the antisemitism in the Labour Party.")

Does the vicar approve of these two sentiments, the first below the identical post on his Peacemaker Trust page, and the second by the commenter on her own page?  Decidedly dodgy comments, eh? 

To judge by what he allows commenters on his own page to get away with (I've given many examples over the years), it would seem that "the Church of England takes antisemitism very seriously" does not represent him, or the followers in question would surely long since have been defriended.)

While Jews seem to be fair game, "Islamophobia" is by contrast taken very seriously by our old friend.

He would seem to know his constituency, after all.

See above article here  

See above article here

See above article here

Strange bedfellows, Muslims and Christians, but of course politics breeds strange bedfellows. The role of Sizer's so-called Peacemaker Trust in pushing Chrislam and Christian Palestinianism's agenda and weakening western support for Israel should not be underestimated. 

By the same token, Christian friends of Israel should be cherished and not be taken for granted.