David Singer: Trump Turns Screws as PLO Creates Fake News on Jerusalem and Refugees

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

He writes:
 
President Trump cancelled more than $US200 million in aid to the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) this week – following his earlier decisions:

• reducing America’s contribution to the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) by about $US300 million and
• recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moving the US Embassy there.

An infuriated PLO has responded by making the following false claims concerning Jerusalem and aid to refugees in the West Bank and Gaza – which have been uncritically and unquestioningly reported as news:

1. Jerusalem

PLO executive committee member Ahmed Tamimi exclaimed:

“Jerusalem is at the heart of the Palestinian, Arab and Islamic peoples”

This claim contravenes Article 1 of the Palestinian National Charter – which declares:

“Palestine is the homeland of the Arab Palestinian people; it is an indivisible part of the Arab homeland, and the Palestinian people are an integral part of the Arab nation.

Claiming the “Palestinian people” is a separate and distinct people from the “Arab people” – is deceptive and misleading.

Meanwhile, Husam Zomlot – head of the Palestinian General Delegation to the United States – stated:

“After Jerusalem and UNRWA, this (cutting of aid to the PLO) is another confirmation of abandoning the two-state solution and fully embracing Netanyahu’s anti-peace agenda.”

Negotiations to conclude the  “two state solution” – the creation of  a 22^ndArab state with Jerusalem as its capital – in addition to the Arab state of Jordan created in 78 per cent of former Palestine in 1946 – ended in April 2014 after unsuccessful negotiations spanning 20 years.

Other solutions now need to be explored that should involve Jordan and possibly Egypt negotiating with Israel to return to these two existing Arab states territory once occupied by them in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), East Jerusalem and the Gaza District between 1948 and 1967.

2.   Cutting US financial aid to refugees in the West Bank and Gaza

PLO Executive Committee member Hanan Ashrawi declared:

“The rights of the Palestinian people are not for sale. There is no glory in constantly bullying and punishing a people under occupation. The U.S. administration has already demonstrated meanness of spirit in its collusion with the Israeli occupation and its theft of land and resources; now it is exercising economic meanness by punishing the Palestinian victims of this occupation.”

 Ashrawi ignored the following facts:

• The West Bank currently has 775,000registered “refugees” – around a quarter of who live in 19 refugee camps– all of which have been under full PLO administrative control since 1993 as designated by the Oslo Accords.
• Gaza has 3 millionregistered “refugees” – of who 500000 currently live in 8 refugee camps– all of which have been under Hamas governance since 2007.
• Many of these camps and their inhabitants date back to 1949. Severe overcrowding problems, high rates of unemployment, personal safety and poor infrastructure are common to them all.

The PLO and Hamas have maintained this discriminatory two-tiered refugee segregation system in both Gaza and the West Bank for at least the last ten years.

The failure to close these camps and integrate their residents into the general Gazan and West Bank Arab populations is a damning indictment of Hamas and the PLO.
Expecting Trump to pick up the tab as these inhumane practices continue for crass political purposes is arrogant and unwarranted.

Trump has made it clear these funds will go to relieving genuine refugee distress in other parts of the world.

The PLO’s outright refusal to negotiate with Israel on Trump’s long-awaited peace plan – inflamed by these latest false claims – only ensures the PLO’s increasingly-rapid slide into political irrelevance.

(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)

"I Believe Jeremy Corbyn is Antisemitic ... Come on Jezza, Sue Me!" (video)

Here's British broadcaster Julia Hartley-Brewer, a whizz of an interviewer, making abundantly clear her judgment of Jeremy Corbyn!

On the No Nonsense Breakfast she interviews Neil Coyle, Labour MP for Bermondsey and Old Southwark, and (oy vey!) Mike Cushman, founder member and officer of "Jewish Voice for Labour".

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sZupOIaERc

"Nasty Nick Cotton" Still Standing with Richmond's PSC

I have no idea why John Clarkson Stewart chose the stage name John Altman.

"John Altman" sounds more than a tad Jewish. But Jewish the British actor ain't,  as the cross he wears around his neck in this video from 2015  in close proximity to the Palestine Solidarity Badge that seems to be a ubiquitous part of his couture would seem to indicate.

 (Remember the kerfuffle over his sporting of that PSC badge on the ITV show Loose Women a couple of years ago?  "Aussie Dave" of Israelly Cool blogged about it here)

In that video from 2015 Jenny Tonge standing on Mr Altman's right, for this is a Kingston and Richmond PSC event, and Richmond's Jenny's local branch.

Maybe it's Mr Altman's too (a far cry, posh leafy Surrey, from cockney Albert Square, the fictional stomping ground of "Nasty" Nick Cotton, Mr Altman's erstwhile alter ego in the BBC soap EastEnders.)

Anyway, defaming Israel's conduct in defending itself from terror and aggression has become an annual high summer occasion for the well-heeled PSC types of Surrey, and Mr Altman seems to be something of a fixture on these occasions.

In the 2015 video to which I've linked above Mr Altman pledges to do all in his power as an actor to push the Palestinian cause: "It's all they want ... to have their own land and live in peace ..."  he declares, as if the fiendish aims of Hamas and Hezbollah did not exist.

"What the Israelis do to the people of Gaza Hitler did to the Jews", he thunders. 

"America and every powerful nation should tell the Israelis to stop. Cut them off from the national [sic; international?] community.  They wonder why they're hated ..."

As this video by anti-Israel activist Seymour Alexander shows, Mr Altman was on hand a few days ago to give moral support to  those posh folk from the Richmond and Kingston PSC.  The video consists of a litany of names of Palestinian children allegedly killed by Israel.  To quote the uploader:

PSC Richmond &Kingston's annual commemorative name-reading event for the 551 slaughtered Palestinian children during the IDF's 'Protective Edge' assault on Gaza in July/August 2014. This year unhappily there is a whole new batch of names to be added containing the names of children killed by Israeli sniper fire during the 'Great March of Return' demonstrations in Gaza (2018).

It's likely that Mr Altman's a good-natured soul who's been taken in by the incessant propaganda spewed out by much of the leftist media, including the egregiously dishonest reportage by many of the correspondents employed by the BBC.  Al Beeb, of course, was only too ready to proclaim the supposed casualty figures at the time of Operation Protective Edge.  So it is not surprising that the naive and the gullible were taken in by them. 

But as we read, regarding the earlier (2008-9) Operation Cast Lead, here (where links to the statements are given):

'Every war has civilian casualties. It is one of the tragic elements of violent conflict. Sadly, the war in Gaza was no different and innocent lives were lost and should be mourned. It is still necessary, however, to separate fact from fiction about the casualties of war and ensure that scurrilous accusations about the behavior of the Israeli Defense Forces do not go unchallenged.

History has shown that Israeli soldiers are routinely smeared by officials from human rights organizations, the UN and propagandists in the Arab world and beyond. To cite just a few examples, in the first Lebanon war, Israel was accused of killing 10,000 Lebanese and leaving 600,000 homeless. Later, it was learned the figures were inventions of Yasser Arafat’s brother, Fathi, who headed the Palestine Red Crescent. In 2002, Israel was charged with killing 500 people in the Jenin “massacre.” It was a lie. A total of 56 people died, 34 were terrorists. In the second Lebanon war, the Lebanese Prime Minister claimed another “massacre,” but instead of 40 dead as he claimed, only one person had died.

In Gaza, we are told that 1,300 Palestinians died, most civilians. What is the source for these statistics?

The principal source appears to be Palestinian health officials who are all employed by Hamas. Given that Hamas killed Palestinians who crossed the organization during the fighting and have been exacting more revenge since the cease-fire, how likely is it that any of these officials will provide accurate information? Since it is in the interest of Hamas to minimize the number of casualties among its troops and maximize the number of civilians, is it surprising that Palestinians claim fewer than 100 terrorists were killed?

Usually journalists seek two sources to verify information, but in this case, most were satisfied with one that was unreliable and likely biased. At the least, the media could have presented the figures as unverifiable claims.

What about the UN sources? They have their own bias from years of working for the benefit of the Palestinians, cooperating with Hamas and apologizing for terror against Jews. Moreover, since UN officials were unlikely to have gone around Gaza counting bodies, they likely relied on the same tainted Palestinian sources.

Meanwhile, how do we know how many of the casualties were terrorists and how many were not? We know that Hamas ordered the fighters to take off their uniforms and try to blend in with the civilian population. We know they hid in private homes. If a dead man is found, is it clear that he is not a terrorist? What incentive do Palestinian officials have for reporting that he is?

What about women and children? Obviously, they were innocent victims. Unfortunately, because of Hamas’s cynical use of women and children as rocket crews, ammunition carriers and human bombs, even small numbers of these normally innocent groups of people may very well have been combatants.

It is also not clear how civilians died. According to the Palestinians, Israel murdered them all. But how many died from Hamas rockets that fell short? We know of at least two Palestinian children killed that way. How many died when booby-traps set for Israeli troops went off in rooms full of Palestinians trapped there by Hamas? How many were killed by secondary explosions when arms caches hit by Israeli forces exploded? How many died because they were in the vicinity of rocket crews that drew Israeli fire? The truth is the people reporting casualty figures have made no effort to determine the cause of death because that would limit the propaganda value of the dead.

A deeper philosophical question is whether Palestinians who did nothing to prevent the Hamas attacks are “innocent.”

According to the IDF, 700 of the dead were terrorists, mostly from Hamas, and 250 were civilians. Another 200 people are still unaccounted for. If these figures are accurate, then the majority of the casualties were indeed terrorists. Israel, of course, has its own bias, but it also has a record of integrity and, unlike the Palestinian Authority, is an open democracy that allows its claims to be checked independently.

Every individual should be mourned whatever the true number of casualties. So long as Hamas uses its children as shields, as rocket crews and as suicide bombers, however, Israel can do nothing to achieve peace with the Palestinians.'

Stephen Sizer in De Nile

Comrade Corbyn in London in July. Photo: Chris Ratcliffe/Getty images

Among the almost daily revelations of the antisemitism rife within the ranks of the Corbynistas, from the odious  Corbyn himself downwards, is this Daily Mail report of 24 August.

Inter alia, we are told (emphasis added):

'Jeremy Corbyn accused British "Zionists" of having "no sense of English irony" despite having "lived in Britain all of their lives", in comments that have been slammed by Jewish groups as anti-Semitic, MailOnline can reveal.

The remarks were made in 2013, when Corbyn was giving a speech alongside prominent British extremists, at a London conference promoted by the propaganda website of terror group Hamas.  [Video at source]

The Labour leader said: "[British Zionists] clearly have two problems. One is they don't want to study history, and secondly, having lived in this country for a very long time, probably all their lives, they don't understand English irony either."

He added: "They needed two lessons, which we could perhaps help them with."

.... The Labour leader made the comments at a conference at Friends House in Euston. The event was advertised online by Hamas' Al-Qassam Brigades, which is designated a terrorist group by Britain, the EU, the United States and other countries.

In one of the speeches, made by 9/11 conspiracy theorist Alan Hart, "Zionism" was described as a "cancer at the heart of international affairs". It was also called a "monster" and compared to Nazi Germany.

The programme of speakers included a range of anti-Semites, homophobes and conspiracy theorists. Several were connected to Hamas. One called for attacks on the Royal Navy in the past, and led a boycott of Holocaust Memorial Day.

In addition, a number have been formerly associated with the Labour leader, or supported by him....

Another speaker, Reverend Stephen Sizer, was later banned from social media after suggesting that Israel was behind the 9/11 attack on the twin towers. 

Corbyn wrote a letter defending him, saying he was "under attack" by a pro-Israeli smear campaign.

 ....The explosive revelations will increase the pressure on Corbyn to resign as he struggles to contain the anti-Semitism crisis engulfing his party....'

In response, Sizer, now CEO of the so-called Peacemaker Trust, has posted on Facebook:

Never banned from using social media?

Sizer would appear to have a memory lapse.  In response to his shameful January 2015 Facebook post above (screenshot and sent to the Anglo-Jewish press by Yours Truly), his then boss, the Bishop of Guildford, announced, inter alia (emphasis added):

"By associating with or promoting subject matter, which is either ambiguous in its motivation, or (worse still) openly racist, he has crossed a serious line. I regard these actions as indefensible....

In order for Stephen to remain in parish ministry, I have therefore asked for - and received from him - a solemn undertaking, in writing, that he is to refrain entirely from writing or speaking on any theme that relates, either directly or indirectly, to the current situation in the Middle East or to its historical backdrop.

He has promised to refrain, with no exceptions, from attendance at or participation in any conferences which promote or are linked to this agenda; from all writing, tweeting, blogging, emailing, preaching and teaching on these themes, whether formally or informally – a prohibition which of course includes posting links to other sites; and from all background work in this area which may resource others to act as spokespeople in Stephen’s stead.

Should Stephen be deemed by the Diocese to have broken this agreement, in letter or in spirit, he has pledged to offer me his immediate resignation, which I will duly accept. He has also agreed to desist from the use of social media entirely for the next six months, after which he and I will review that prohibition...."

In 2014, he attended a reprehensible conference in Iran that included the following delightful session:

Sizer (who apparently addressed the conference in a different session on "The Israeli Lobby in England") was not a speaker, so far as I am aware, in that particular session.   But it's surely deeply disturbing that a vicar-cum-"peacemaker mediator" should have been at that particular conference at all.  (See here)

 That same year this appeared on Facebook:

Somewhat "suggestive", eh?  (Glad to jog your memory, vicar!)

David Singer: Trump Anoints Jordan to Replace PLO in Negotiations with Israel

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

He writes: 

The three-day visit to Israel this week by President Trump’s National Security Advisor – John Bolton – indicates Jordan will replace the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) in concluding negotiations with Israel to resolve territorial sovereignty in Judea and Samaria (West Bank), East Jerusalem and Gaza  (”the disputed territories”) under Trump’s peace plan.

Bolton’s visit follows a former Jordanian ambassador – Walid Sadi – last week signalling Jordan is ready to fill the diplomatic void following the breakdown of Israel-PLO negotiations unsuccessfully conducted during the last 25 years. The PLO refuses to negotiate on Trump’s plan.

Walid resurrected Jordan’s long-dormant claims to sovereignty in the disputed territories that completely undermine those of the PLO:

“First of all, the unity of the West Bank with the East Bank was officially and constitutionally adopted on 24 of April 1950. No one disputes this fact. The Constitution of the country at the time was the 1952 Constitution, which stipulated in no uncertain terms that no part of the Kingdom shall be ceded, period. This provision makes the 1988 decision to cut off all legal and administrative relations between the two banks stopping short of ceding the West Bank to any side whatsoever. Any other interpretation of the 1988 political decision is absolutely untenable constitutionally.”

Bolton himself has supported Israel-Jordan negotiations over the West Bank since 2009.

Bolton told Eric Shawn on 21 January 2018:

“I hope at some point the Administration recognizes and perhaps it is already quietly – that the two-state solution isn’t going anywhere. If anything I would say to King Abdullah of Jordan – “Be prepared to reassert Jordanian sovereignty over part of the West Bank – negotiate with Israel”. I think that’s a far better outcome than the continued pursuit of a mythical – I believe – unattainable viable Palestinian state”

George Will – an outspoken critic of President Trump – has claimed: 

“Bolton will soon be the second-most dangerous American.”

Yet Will himself had written in the Washington Post on 17 April 1987:

“May 14 will be the 30th Anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel, June 6 will be the 20th anniversary of the Six Day War. The West Bank has been held by Israel longer than it had been held by Jordan, the 1967 aggressor, which ever since has presented itself as the aggrieved party. Today, as every day since 1948, the key to peace is direct negotiations between Jordan and Israel, not a committee”

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been seeking direct negotiations with Jordan for decades – telling the United Nations General Assembly on 11 December 1984:

“Clearly, in Eastern and Western Palestine, there are only two peoples, the Arabs and the Jews. Just as clearly, there are only two states in that area, Jordan and Israel. The Arab State of Jordan, containing some three million Arabs, does not allow a single Jew to live there. It also contains 4/5 of the territory originally allocated by this body’s predecessor, the League of Nations, for the Jewish National Home. The other State, Israel, has a population of over four million, of which one sixth is Arab. It contains less than 1/5 of the territory originally allocated to the Jews under the Mandate…. It cannot be said, therefore, that the Arabs of Palestine are lacking a state of their own. The demand for a second Palestinian Arab State in Western Palestine, and a 22nd Arab State in the world, is merely the latest attempt to push Israel back into the hopelessly vulnerable armistice lines of 1949.”

Two peoples – the Arabs and the Jews – need two states – not three – in former Palestine.
 
(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)

"Enough is Enough": UK Antisemitism & Leftist Double Standards

As most readers will know, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's working definition of antisemitism, adopted in May 2016, includes

  Calling for, aiding, or justifying the killing or harming of Jews in the name of a radical ideology or an extremist view of religion.

For background CLICK HERE

 Making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective — such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions.

 Accusing Jews as a people of being responsible for real or imagined wrongdoing committed by a single Jewish person or group, or even for acts committed by non-Jews.

Denying the fact, scope, mechanisms (e.g. gas chambers) or intentionality of the genocide of the Jewish people at the hands of National Socialist Germany and its supporters and accomplices during World War II (the Holocaust).

Accusing the Jews as a people, or Israel as a state, of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust.

 Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations.

Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.

Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.

Using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (e.g., claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis.

 Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.

 Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel.

Writes Brendan O'Neill currently in The Spectator:

"[O]n Israel, on the Jewish State, suddenly freedom of speech becomes important to them. The Corbyn crew is reluctant to adopt in full the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of anti-Semitism because they think it will undermine the freedom to denounce and mock and ridicule Israel. This is literally the only time I have heard Corbynistas defend freedom of speech. The only freedom that excites them is the freedom to say Israel is foul, Israeli leaders are Nazi-esque, and British Jews might be a tad disloyal to Britain.

As I say, double standards. Jews and Jewish issues are always treated differently by Corbynistas. And there’s a word for that: prejudice...."  [Emphasis added]

Double standards appear to be discernible in these interviews by the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire, who closely quizzes and frequently interrupts Mark Lewis (a prominent lawyer) and Mandy Blumenthal (whom she ludicrously describes as a member of the non-existent UK Zionist Party!) regarding their perceptions of antisemitism, in contrast to her interview with three Muslims regarding "Islamophobia".

Compare and contrast: 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7Mi3_irkEo

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3FAMWybZtU

Or watch the synopsis provided on Facebook by the Israel Advocacy Movement.

To quote a certain indefatigable pro-Israel activist, commenting on Facebook:

"Derbyshire's interviewing of Mark Lewis and Mandy Blumenthal was appalling. She pretended there was no antisemitism in Labour. She simply read out Corbyn's statements. She was like his press spokesperson. Shameful. She even told Blumenthal she is a member of the 'UK Zionist Party'! Such ignorance. There is no such Party."

 Maybe she's teachable:

In Australia, Claims of Bigotry, Blackballing & a Baklava

 As seen at left, and below, in very recent Tweets, Lebanese-born New South Wales Labor MP Shaoquett Moselbane is a vigorous pro-Palestinian proponent. 

In March 2013, Mr Moselmane sparked outrage when he gave, inside that chamber, what Dan Goldberg writing in Haaretz described as "a firebrand speech ... a vituperative tirade" alleging that the creation of Israel was a “corruption of justice,” that Gaza is “the world's largest open-air prison camp,” and that Israel ran “torture camps” in southern Lebanon.

Continued Goldberg:

'Moselmane also accused Israel of “massive violations of human rights,” saying: “If there was ever a group in need of protection from war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing, it is the Palestinians.”

The first Muslim ever elected to the NSW parliament added this: “I salute the [Lebanese] resistance. Imagine what the response would have been in 1941 or 1942 if we had condemned resistance against Nazi Germany. Guns would have been blazing at us for not resisting Nazi Germany. In Lebanon the resistance was able to force the Israelis out.”

Moselmane was supported by fellow Labor MP Linda Voltz and by Greens MP David Shoebridge, both known for anti-Israel activism.

Afterwards, the CEO of the New South Wales Jewish Board of Deputies, Vic Aldaheff, who had sat in the gallery during the entire three-hour debate, said, according to the same report: 

“It was very disappointing to hear such outrageous slurs and baseless comments made against Israel in an Australian parliament.

Fortunately, they came from a handful of marginal MPs and were quickly and appropriately condemned by Labor and Liberal MPs.”

He described Moselmane’s comparison with Nazi Germany as “outrageous” and “beyond belief,” adding: “I would describe it as a one-off rant but a one-off rant that showed the depth of animosity from a marginal group within the parliament.”

Alhadeff ... said he was in the gallery during some of the debates about the Israel boycott in 2011.“While there were hostile critics of Israel no one ever made a comparison to the Nazis,” he told Haaretz."

 During the past week Mr Moselmane has sparked outrage again.

 Reported political editor Andrew Clennel in The Australian (14 August):

'The first Muslim MP in the NSW parliament has sparked a row overnight, refusing entry to a respected Jewish leader to a Labor Party multicultural launch.

Upper House MP Shaoquett Moselmane refused entry to Jewish Board of Deputies CEO Vic Alhadeff at the launch of the Labor Union Multicultural Action Committee launch last night saying, according to Mr Alhadeff, that he was not a Labor Party member before offering him a baklava on the way out.

The baklava was declined.

Mr Alhadeff had had an invitation to the Sussex Street event by Labor General secretary Kaila Murnain and Unions NSW chief Mark Morey.

But his invitation only came after Mr Alhadeff had questioned why Mr Moselmane had not invited him in the first place.

“While I appreciated the goodwill in receiving an invitation from Kaila Murnain and Mark Morey, it is unfortunate that Mr Moselmane would defy his party leadership and deny entry to a leader of the Jewish community,” Mr Alhadeff said.

“Given that the invitation which Mr Moselmane sent to others specifically said he hoped this new organisation would become a conduit between the multicultural community and Labor and the union movement, it made no sense to exclude the CEO of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies when we represent the Jewish community and are an active component of multicultural NSW.”

NSW Opposition Leader Luke Foley said he has apologised to Mr Alhadeff for what occurred.

“He did receive a written invitation to the meeting,” Mr Foley said. “Unfortunately Mr Moselmane says there was a miscommunication. NSW Labor maintains healthy and constructive relations with Vic and other leaders of the state’s Jewish community, and that will continue.” ....'

Taking to Twitter, Mr Moselmane declared:

(The Australian is the flagship newspaper of Rupert Murdoch's NewsCorporation empire Down Under, and is the most pro-Israel of this country's broadsheets.)

But, wait, there's more!  It seems that the Jewish media outlet J-Wire, as well as the Australian Jewish News, failed to receive invitations to cover events to which they might reasonably expect to be able to cover.  Here's how the Sydney Daily Telegraph (16 August) reported the matter:

Here's Mr Moselmane's reaction:

Of the apparent snub to the Jewish community Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer, no stranger to readers of this blog, comments over at J-Wire:

 'The NSW Labor Party appears to be following in the footsteps of the openly brazen Jew-hatred displayed in the UN Human Rights Council – as emulated by the British Labour Party through its leader Jeremy Corbyn.

NSW Labor party leader Luke Foley needs to deal with Moselane firmly and promptly to prevent the spread of this disease in his own backyard. If Foley allows his party to continue to be tainted by Moselane’s actions – Foley will bear the electoral consequences that must inevitably flow from his inaction.

I hope to see J Wire and the Australian Jewish News receive the same respect and recognition accorded to other ethnic media in NSW.'

Oh, and talking of NewsCorp and Jeremy Corbyn, The Australian's foreign editor Greg Sheridan has an absolute humdinger of an article about antisemitism, Corbyn and the Corbynistas today! Too bad it's behind a paywall. Catch it if you can.)

David Singer: Jordan-Israel Negotiations on Trump Peace Plan Set to Bypass PLO

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

He writes:

Jordan-Israel negotiations based on President Trump’s long-awaited peace plan seem increasingly likely to happen – following retired Jordanian Ambassador and former editor of the Jordan Times– Walid Sadi – flagging Jordan’s legal and sovereignty claims in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) and East Jerusalem (“disputed territories”).

Sadi – in an op-ed article in the Jordan Times on 12 August – has forcefully argued that Jordan’s decision to cut off all legal and administrative relations with the disputed territories in July 1988 did not amount to Jordan ceding its claims to sovereignty for the following reasons:

“First of all, the unity of the West Bank with the East Bank was officially and constitutionally adopted on 24 of April 1950. No one disputes this fact. The Constitution of the country at the time was the 1952 Constitution, which stipulated in no uncertain terms that no part of the Kingdom shall be ceded, period. This provision makes the 1988 decision to cut off all legal and administrative relations between the two banks stopping short of ceding the West Bank to any side whatsoever. Any other interpretation of the 1988 political decision is absolutely untenable constitutionally.”

The Jordan Times is published by the Jordan Press Foundation – in which the government-owned Social Security Investment Fund has a majority stake. Wadi’s politically-charged and highly-significant article could only have been published with the knowledge and approval of Jordan’s King Abdullah.

Jordan’s claims are far superior to those of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) – Jordan being the last Arab state to occupy and claim sovereignty (albeit illegally) in the disputed territories from 1948 until their loss to Israel in the 1967 Six Day War.

Indeed the 1964 PLO Charter made no claim to sovereignty in the disputed territories –completely negating any claimed ancient and long-standing rights accruing to its Arab populations which would outweigh the claims by Jordan to these areas – where sovereignty still remains undetermined between Arabs and Jews.

Jordan’s pivotal role in bringing Trump’s peace proposals to a successful conclusion are grounded in the following salient facts:

• West Bank and East Jerusalem Arabs voted to unify these areas with Transjordan in 1950 and rename the unified entity – “Jordan”
• West Bank Arabs were citizens of Jordan possessing Jordanian passports between 1950 and 1988.
• Half the members of the Jordanian Parliament were elected from the West Bank Arab population between 1950 and 1967.
• Jordan’s population is overwhelmingly comprised of Arabs born east or west of the Jordan River.
• Jordan itself comprises 78% of the territory of former Palestine
• Jordan and Israel are the two successor states to the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine already exercising between them mutually-agreed sovereignty in 95% of former Palestine
• Jordanian custodianship of Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem is guaranteed under the 1994 Israel-Jordan Peace Treaty.

Reunifying into one territorial unit the East Bank with areas of the West Bank allocated to Jordan only requires Israel and Jordan to redraw their already existing internationally-recognised border.
Israeli and Jordanian negotiators – armed only with pencils, sharpeners and erasers – can achieve this new dividing line between their respective states within a relatively short time.

The PLO has made it clear that it wants no part in negotiating Trump’s proposals. It – and Hamas – will be left to cool their heels and contemplate the many squandered opportunities to create an additional state between Israel and Jordan since the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993.

Jordan’s decision to resurrect its long-dormant claims after 30 years of studied silence and subservience to PLO posturing should be welcomed by all who want to see the Jewish-Arab conflict ended.

(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)

"Israel Has Been Made an Alibi for a New Climate of anti-Semitism on the Left"

Time to re-read the late lamented Professor Norman Geras's post here on "Alibi Antisemitism".

Here's the merest taster:

"In Marx's essay On the Jewish Question, written in 1844, there are two contrasting sets of themes vis-à-vis the Jews. In Part II of the essay Marx deploys some well-known negative stereotypes, according to which: the mundane basis of Judaism is self-interest, egoism, or, as Marx also calls it, 'an anti-social element'; the worldly religion of the Jew is huckstering; and the Jew's jealous god – 'in face of which no other god may exist' – is money.

The emancipation of the Jews is said by him to be equivalent to the emancipation of mankind from Judaism. Part I, on the other hand, presents a version of secular democracy in which the Jews, like any religious or other particularistic grouping, may retain their religion and their separate identity consistently with the state itself rising above such particularisms, and rendering these politically irrelevant.

Though Marx himself regards this – political emancipation – as an incomplete form of emancipation, he nonetheless articulates a genuine type of moral universalism: different faiths, ethnicities, peoples, have a right to assert their specific identities and shared beliefs within the free secular order of the democratic state. The distinctions between such groups just cease to have a political bearing. Marx does not extend this argument beyond the single state to the global arena (that not being part of the discursive context), but the correlate at international level of what he argues in Part I of On the Jewish Question is today embodied in the notion of a right of nations to self-determination, as affirmed in Article 1.2 of the United Nations Charter.

The contrasting themes of Marx's essay may be taken as emblematic of the state of affairs obtaining today between Jews and the left. It is not difficult to understand the long affinity there has been between them. Common traditions of opposition to injustice, the commitment within liberal and socialist thought to ideals of equality (whether this is equality under the law or equality in substantive economic terms), opposition to racist and other similar types of prejudice – these things have long served to attract Jews to organizations and movements of the left, and they still do.

[Continues Prof Geras:]

At the same time, that affinity has now been compromised by the existence of a new climate of anti-Semitic opinion within the left. This climate of opinion affects a section of the left only, and not the whole of it. But it is a substantial section. Its convenient alibi is the state of Israel – by which I mean that Israel is standardly invoked to deflect the charge that there is anything of anti-Semitism at work. Israel, so the story goes, is a delinquent state and, for many of those who regard it so, a non-legitimate one – colonialist, imperialist, vehicle of oppression and what have you.

 Similarly, diaspora Jews who defend Israel within their home countries are not seen as the conduit of Jewish interests and/or opinion in the normal way of any other democratic articulation; they are treated, rather, as a dubious force – the notorious 'Jewish lobby' – as if their organized existence were somehow improper.

These themes pitch those who sponsor them out of a genuine, and into a spurious, type of universalism: one where the Jews are special amongst other groups in being obliged to settle for forms of political freedom in which their identity may not be asserted collectively; Jews must be satisfied, instead, merely with the rights available to them as individuals. I call this a spurious universalism because people's rights to live as they will (subject to the usual constraint of not harming others) is an incomplete right – a truncated and impaired right – if it does not include the freedom to associate with others of their own kind.

To repeat: Israel has been made an alibi for a new climate of anti-Semitism on the left." [Emphasis added]

 (All tweets pictured above are current ones.)  For Corbyn's eyeroll see here

Love & Hate, New Time, Olde Tyme

Canadian politician Candice Bergen (yes, really!) poses a straightforward question regarding funding for an antisemitic group in Toronto to Pierre Trudeau, and receives a less than straightforward answer. 

Meanwhile, two tweets from a brave man:

And another of those lovable Olde Tyme-in-our-time preachers:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxvmEzfqT4g

To quote the translator and uploader, Memri.org:

'During a parliamentary session in Gaza, Hamas MP and cleric Yunis Al-Astal recited at length quotes from the Quran, vilifying the Jews. "We do not have time to list their abominations, which merited their transformation into apes and pigs," he added, saying that due to these faults, Jewish scholars were described as "dogs," and the simple people were described as "donkeys." Al-Astal further said that Allah has gathered "those corrupters" in Palestine in order "to annihilate their corruption at the hands of His servants of great might," and ended with a recommendation to produce a generation of "servants of Allah with great might." The Gaza parliamentary session aired on Al-Quds TV (Lebanon).'

And a preacher stateside:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMRl4py7KFo

To quote CAMERAorg:

'Gayle Harris, Suffragan Bishop for the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts, defames Israel while speaking at a meeting of the denomination’s House of Bishops during the 2018 General Convention.

During her testimony in favor of a resolution that condemned Israel for allegedly mistreating Palestinian children (but made no mention of the hate-indoctrination on television shows broadcast by Hamas and the Palestinian Authority), Harris accused Israeli soldiers of shooting a 15-year-old Palestinian boy in the back 10 times.

When did this happen? What is the name of the victim? The first that the world heard of this atrocity was from Harris herself speaking at a church meeting a few years after the alleged incident happened. That doesn’t make any sense. Since when would Palestinian leaders fail to broadcast such an atrocity to the world?

Harris also told a story about Israeli security officials attempting to handcuff a three-year-old boy after his rubber ball bounced off the Temple Mount onto the Western Wall.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center highlighted the absurdity of the bouncing-ball story: “There is a high stone wall on top of the Temple Mount that blocks balls and people from going over the side.” Moreover, as anyone who has been on the Temple Mount can attest, Israeli soldiers do not need to “come up” to the Temple Mount as Harris stated, because they are already stationed on the site.

CAMERA has called on Bishop Harris to provide confirmatory details about these stories and if she can’t retract them and apologize for spreading unsubstantiated propaganda to her fellow Bishops. The Israel-Palestinian conflict is tragic enough. It does not need to be made worse by unsubstantiated atrocity stories that only serve to demonize Israel.'  (See also here and here)

The Blond, the Berks & the Burqa

Regarding Boris Johnson's recent remarks about the burqa, condemned by Theresa May and a bunch of trembling Tories as well as the usual suspects, I was looking at this Twitter page admiring the forthright views of true feminists such as the page owner herself when I spotted this:


Corbyn's an atheist.  Strange to see him at prayer.  But has he been traduced?  Here's more on that story.

Among Suzanne Evans's tweets and retweets regarding Boris's criticism of the burkha, such as those by Conservative MP Nadine Dorries, who's in a spot of trouble over one tweet, there's this delight:

 Splendidly, British broadcaster Julia Hartley-Brewer tells a Muslim female caller that the burqa's "a horrible, ghastly dehumanising garment" and a lot else besides.

A fabulous set of arguments on Julia's part!  She's clever, polite and relentless!

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-hiphhw0PY

Meanwhile, Guardianista columnist Polly Toynbee, an atheist, parades her "Islamophobic" credentials yet again. Too bad she lumps Judaism and Christianity in with the "primitives".

"The pens sharpen - Islamophobia! No such thing. Primitive Middle Eastern religions (and most others) are much the same - Islam, Christianity and Judaism all define themselves through disgust for women's bodies. There are ritual baths, churching, shaving heads, denying abortion and contraception, arranged marriage, purdah, barring unclean women access to the altar, let alone the priesthood, letting men divorce but not women - all this perverted abhorrence of half the human race lies at the maggotty heart of religion, the defining creed in all the holy of holies."

 As Taj Hargey, an imam in Oxford put it, inter alia, in a letter to The Times:

"Boris Johnson should not apologise for telling the truth. His evocative analogy is unfortunate but he is justified in reminding everyone that the Wahhabi/Salafi-inspired fad of female facial masking has no Koranic legitimacy. It is, however, a nefarious component of a trendy gateway theology for religious extremism and militant Islam.  The burka and niqab are hideous tribal ninja-like garments that are pre-Islamic, non-Koranic and therefore un-Muslim. Although this deliberate identity-concealing contraption is banned at the Kaaba in Mecca it is permitted in Britain, thus precipitating security risks, accelerating vitamin D deficiency, endorsing gender-inequality and inhibiting community cohesion."

Update:
O, the irony!  Al Beeb (among others) reports:

"Christine Hamilton has been removed as a charity ambassador after comparing burkas to the hoods of the Ku Klux Klan. The broadcaster and wife of UKIP Welsh Assembly member Neil Hamilton sparked outrage on Twitter with her comments. Muscular Dystrophy UK said it opposed "prejudice and discrimination" and had severed all links with Mrs Hamilton."

"Prejudice and discrimination", eh?  For the prejudice and discrimination against women involved in enforced veiling try this for size, and be sure to look at the comment that links to this: http://www.faizaneraza.org/islamic-article-read.php?article_id=31

David Singer: Trump and Israel Dabble in Hamas and PLO Quicksand

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

He writes:

President Trump’s attempt to see a five-year Gaza ceasefire negotiated between Hamas and Israel seems to be an exercise in futility destined to failure. 

America’s involvement first surfaced on 7 July when “an unnamed senior Trump administration official” stated:  

“We definitely have a Gaza focus right now because the situation is the way it is, and we want to try to help. But it’s not as though we think we need to fix Gaza first before we would air the peace plan.”   

If it sounds like a cop-out and looks like a cop-out – it is a cop-out.

The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) had made it very clear months ago it would have nothing to do with Trump’s yet to-be-released peace plan – no matter when it is aired. 

Arab States supportive of Trump’s plan were wavering.

Leaving those small technicalities aside - any negotiations between Israel and Hamas over Gaza would be anathema to the PLO - which has been engaged in an internecine struggle with Hamas to govern Gaza since 2007.

Indeed, Fatah spokesman Osama Qawasmeh has already reportedly said the number one priority should be achieving Palestinian unity on the basis of previous agreements signed between Hamas and Fatah - and not a truce with Israel in return for humanitarian aid.

Trump’s “ultimate deal” was initially foreshadowed back in 2016 – before Trump was even sworn in as president:

“I believe that my administration can play a significant role in helping the parties to achieve a just, lasting peace – which must be negotiated between the parties themselves, and not imposed on them by others. Israel and the Jewish people deserve no less”  

Trump did not then define who he meant by “the parties”.

Given the developments in the Middle East generally since 2016 – and in Gaza and the West Bank specifically – both Hamas and the PLO seem to have disqualified themselves from possibly participating in negotiating Trump’s peace plan. This leaves the way open for Jordan and Egypt – the last two Arab States to occupy the West Bank and Gaza respectively between 1948 and 1967 – to fill the empty Hamas and PLO chairs at the negotiating table with Israel.

Trump’s new Gaza approach is conditioned upon the following observation made by his three negotiating emissaries – Jared Kushner, Jason Greenblatt and David Friedman – in their op-ed article in the Washington Post on 20 July:

“For far too long, Gaza has lurched from crisis to crisis, sustained by emergency appeals and one-time caravans of aid, without dealing with the root cause: Hamas leadership is holding the Palestinians of Gaza captive. This problem must be recognized and resolved or we will witness yet another disastrous cycle.”

Hamas is not going to suddenly disappear or allow free and fair elections in Gaza to determine who shall govern Gaza’s population. Any reconciliation by Hamas with the PLO seems most unlikely to occur.

Israel appears to be going along with this Gaza trial balloon being floated by Trump.

Realistically however – ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas will be fatuous unless the following provision in the 1988 Hamas Covenant is shredded:

 “The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up. … " 

Trump needs to persuade previously-supportive but now wavering Arab states to back his peace plan being released without delay.

For Trump to contemplate being dragged into the Hamas and PLO quicksand that has claimed so many sincerely-intentioned do-gooders preceding him is incomprehensible.

(Author's Note: 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)

What Did Ben-Gurion Really Say?

In the immediate wake of the Six-Day War?

 In refutation of the continuing untruths and misrepresentations  promulgated by the New York Times, Martin Kramer has the answer:

    • We are now in possession of the Sinai peninsula, the West Bank of the Land of Israel, the Syrian heights east of the Jordan river, Gaza, and the Old City of Jerusalem and its environs.

    • We must be prepared to discuss peace with all our neighbors who fought us: Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Iraq. However, I am not sure the other side is prepared for that.

    • If Egypt agrees to conclude a peace treaty with Israel—and commits to our freedom of navigation, not just in the straits of Eilat, but also in the Suez Canal—we will be ready to evacuate the Sinai desert immediately after the signing of the treaty.

    • We will not discuss the Old City of Jerusalem and its environs with anyone. It was the capital of Israel at the time of King David, and so it will remain forever. The State of Israel will safeguard the holy places of the Christians and Muslims not less than [past] Muslim rule, or the rule of the Crusaders.

    • We will propose to the inhabitants of the West Bank to choose representatives with whom we will conduct negotiations on a West Bank autonomy (excluding Jerusalem and its environs), which will be tied to Israel in an economic alliance, and which will have its outlet to the sea via Haifa or Ashdod or Gaza.

    • A Jewish army will be stationed on the western bank of the Jordan river to protect the independence of the autonomous West Bank.

    • The Gaza Strip will remain in Israel, and efforts will be made to resettle its refugees in the autonomous West Bank, or in other Arab territory, with the assent of the refugees and the assistance of Israel.

    • If Syria agrees to sign a peace treaty, and commits to preventing attacks on Israeli settlements by Syria’s inhabitants and from within its territory, we will evacuate the Syrian [Golan] heights now in our hands.

    • All the Jews who lived in Hebron and its surroundings will be allowed to return to their former homes, even after the West Bank is granted internal autonomy.

    • We will propose a peace treaty to King Hussein between Israel and the East Bank of the Jordan, and will agree to give it an outlet to the Mediterranean, like that given to the West Bank.

Read all of Martin Kramer's article here

Not Cute & Cuddly (videos)

 Activists on an American campus and their Jew-hatred:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yME1TdrkYcY

"The Jews are behind every conspiracy ... human garbage ..."
So, citing the Quran, stated Abdul Samee' Al-'Arabeed, Professor of Quranic Studies at Al-Aqsa University, on 19 July this year (Memri.org video):

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebbyeR1bk1s

Another Memri.org video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNVXblIUV44

In a Friday sermon on 27 July at the Al-Faruq Mosque, Copenhagen, Imam Mundhir Abdallah claimed that his sermon of 31 March last year, for which he was recently indicted on charges of hate speech, was not about the Jews, but about Palestine. To quote the uploader:

For MEMRI TV’s translation of this sermon, in which he had recited the antisemitic hadith about the Prophecy of the Rock and the Tree, see MEMRI TV clip 6013. "The only solution for Palestine is Jihad," said Imam Abdallah in his recent sermon, calling for the establishment of an Islamic Caliphate. "That means war," he emphasized, "not in Denmark and not elsewhere, but in Palestine, to liberate it from the occupation." For more statements by Imam Abdallah, where he said that the "rampaging, filth, and vileness" of the Jews reflect their "immutable nature," see MEMRI TV clip 6689. The July 27 sermon, which was delivered partly in Arabic and partly in English, was posted on the Al-Faruq Mosque Facebook page.

Meanwhile, towards the end of this clip, plucky Swedish journalist Ingrid Carlqvist politely but passionately explains to an interviewer why Islamic face coverings should not be tolerated in Denmark, Sweden, or the rest of Europe.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNcgwnKNml4

David Singer: Trump Should Reject PLO and UN Propaganda on East Jerusalem

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

He writes:

President Trump’s as-yet unannounced “ultimate deal”  to resolve the Arab-Jewish conflict has received a setback following Saudi Arabia’s King Salman reassuring Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas that Saudi Arabia would oppose any Trump peace plan that did not accept the PLO stance on East Jerusalem becoming the capital of an independent Palestinian Arab state.

The PLO claim to East Jerusalem is based on its own propaganda and that of the United Nations which claims East Jerusalem to be “occupied territory”.

United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 – adopted on 23 December 2016 – expresses this claim in the following terms:

 “1. Reaffirms that the establishment by Israel of settlements in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, has no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law and a major obstacle to the achievement of the two-State solution and a just, lasting and comprehensive peace;

   2. Reiterates its demand that Israel immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, and that it fully respect all of its legal obligations in this regard”

These clauses are flawed – denying Jewish claims in East Jerusalem and lacking legitimacy for the following reasons:

- East Jerusalem is not “Palestinian territory”. Jews had lived there for 3000 years until every Jewish inhabitant was forcibly expelled in 1948 by six invading Arab armies.

- East Jerusalem is “reoccupied territory” – not “occupied territory” – having been reclaimed by the Jewish people in the 1967 Six Day War from Jordanian occupation that had made East Jerusalem Judenrein for 19 years.

 - The legal right to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in East Jerusalem was unanimously affirmed by all 51 member states of the League of Nations under article 6 of the 1922 Mandate for Palestine and preserved by article 80 of the UN Charter.

 - Jews are the only people to have ever had a capital in Jerusalem:

“Jerusalem has stood at the center of the Jewish people’s national and spiritual life since King David made it the capital of his kingdom in 1003 BCE. The city remained the capital of the Davidic dynasty for 400 years, until the kingdom was conquered by the Babylonians. Following the return from the Babylonian exile in 538 BCE, Jerusalem again served as the capital of the Jewish people in its land for the next five and a half centuries.”

- The Palestinian Arabs failed to establish an independent state with East Jerusalem as its capital between 1948 and 1967 – choosing instead unity with Transjordan to create a new sovereign entity called “Jordan”

- The PLO on its formation in 1964 expressly rejected any claim to sovereignty in East Jerusalem.

The terms “occupied territory” and “occupied Palestinian territories” have been used to beat Israel over the head for decades. They are false and misleading.

“Reoccupied territory” and “reoccupied Jewish territories” posit an entirely different mindset.

US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley has made Trump’s intentions very clear: 

“From now on, every country knows that the United States will not just block anti-Israel measures, we will shine a light on those who are responsible. There won’t be any more free passes for those who bully Israel at the UN”

Trump should reject these fictitious PLO and UN propaganda ploys to remind King Salman of the speciousness of PLO claims to East Jerusalem.

King Salman told Abbas:

“We accept what you accept and we reject what you reject”

Blind submission to PLO dictates is not the way to confront President Trump.

Semantics are important. One word – “reoccupied” instead of “occupied” – makes a world of difference.

(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)