"It Is Difficult To Imagine A More Striking Example Of How The So-Called Jewish Leadership In The UK Is Failing The Vast Majority Of British Jews"

On 5 March, as many readers will know, the Cambridge Union debated (and carried) the preposterous motion "This House believes that Israel is a rogue state".

The pre-event publicity material stated:

'The Israel/Palestine crisis has existed since Israel’s formation; with neither side gaining the upper hand despite decades of suffering. In this debate we turn to Israel, and ask whether it is time we declared them a rogue state.'

Speaking in favour of the motion were, again quoting from the publicity material, three prominent Israel-haters:

'Dr Norman Finkelstein is a Jewish American political scientist, activist, professor, and author, whose primary fields of research include the Israel–Palestine conflict. He is currently working on his next book, ‘How to Solve the Israel-Palestine Conflict.’Prof.

 Ghada Karmi is a Palestinian author and academic who was made to leave Jerusalem in 1948. Most of her recent research has been on the Israel-Palestinian conflict and has appeared widely in the media and the press

 Ben White is a freelance journalist, writer, and human rights activist. He is a Cambridge graduate, and has published two books on the Israel-Palestine conflict.'  [See White's triumphant take on the debate here]

And those opposing it?

'Vivian Wineman is currently president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the representative body of the Jewish community in Britain.

Hannah Weisfeld is the director and one of the founders of Yachad, the UK’s pro-Israel pro-peace movement. Previously she chaired the Jewish Social Action Forum for two years.

Davis Lewin is the Deputy Director & Head of Policy and Research at the Henry Jackson Society, a global think tank that fights for the principles that keep societies free. He is also a former Middle East Director at the Next Century Foundation.'

The Cambridge Union has a channel on Youtube and posts footage of its debates.  Eventually. 

So far the only video of the debate I've found is this one, which shows rather too much of the frightful Finkelstein but does show the jubilant screams of "Free, free Palestine!" that broke out at the debate's end, as well as a bit of a contretemps afterwards.  Have a look at it, and try to forget that Cambridge is an elite institution when you see the word "rogue" spelt "rouge": 

As Douglas Murray has observed inter alia here:

 'The Cambridge Union – the oldest in the country – enjoys debating that motion more than any other. It is a fixture in its termly schedules.

And once again last week the students of Cambridge decided to hold Israel guilty among the nations. Needless to say there is no record of Cambridge students debating whether Pakistan (created in the same year as Israel) is a rogue state. Despite there being far more reasons to do so.

Nor does the Cambridge Union annually denigrate any of Israel’s neighbours in the Middle East. During last week’s Cambridge debate the notorious anti-Israeli activist and discredited academic Norman Finkelstein explained to the students that Israel is worse than North Korea....'

The students agreed with him. Next month the University of Southampton will become the latest university to fix its position on this bandwagon of hate.'

Quite so.  And regarding that forthcoming "bandwagon of hate" see this excellent analysis of the dramatis personae by David Collier (they [hat tip: Nathan of Plaza] include Wollongong's Marcelo ("BDS and blisters") Svirsky, who features in my previous post, plus a range of heavy-duty srael-loathing nasties).

But it's a post by one of my favourite British bloggers,  Edgar Davidson, which should be ringing alarm bells regarding the Cambridge fracas. He observes, inter alia:

'[T]he Israel 'case' was made by two people whose "support" for Israel is at the very best ambivalent:

1.Hannah Weisfeld, the leader of the anti-Zionist Yachad - which is still trying to con British Jews into thinking it is pro-Israel, even though all the evidence suggests that they fully support the motion that their leader was supposed to be arguing against.

2.Vivian Wineman, the useless and discredited Chairman of the Board of Deputies who has devoted his leadership of the Board to developing ties with the Muslim Council Britain (which is the official Muslim Brotherhood organisation in the UK) and to stopping pro-Israel speakers from coming to the UK....

Two-thirds of Anglo-Jews would vote for Bibi

And irrespective  of their views, Weisfeld and Wineman are also both appalling speakers as anybody who has had the misfortune to hear them will know. It is difficult to imagine a more striking example of how the so-called Jewish leadership in the UK is failing the vast majority of British Jews; unlike Weisfeld and Wineman they are strong supporters of Israel and know that failure to properly support Israel (and counter the propaganda lies against it) is fuelling the rise in antisemitism. [Emphasis added]

 I really [his emphasis] would like to know how either of these goons got selected to make the case for Israel. Was it the Cambridge University Jewish Society? Did nobody raise any concerns? The result of the debate (which interestingly was a complete reversal of a similar motion in 2010) shows what a bad decision it was....' 

 Read all of Edgar Davidson's post here and see his many relevant links below it.

Incidentally, poll results regarding who British Jews favour as Israel's prime minister can be seen here

"With Friends Like That, Who Needs the BNP?" (video)

Pat Condell is certainly worked up in this, his latest rant against Islam in Britain.

His strictures against the Islamic attitude to women are of course well-justified.  Yet the Islamic Human Rights Council gave its recent "Islamophobe of the Year" Award to a young man who had opposed the imposition of gender segregation (demeaning to women) in the public space of the university as demanded by Islamists!

How strange it is that dedicated feminist Sarah Teather MP, one of the brightest stars in the Lib Dem firmament, endorsed the recent "Islamophobia" Awards with the statement:

"I’m really pleased to see the Islamophobia Awards returning this year for what I know will be a very fun evening with a serious message.  Discrimination and prejudice in all their forms are completely unacceptable but, sadly, they persist. With the current climate of anti-immigration rhetoric in the media, I am particularly concerned about rising xenophobia and Islamophobia. That’s why the work of the Islamic Human Rights Commission is so important."

And how strange it is that life peer and former Liberal MP Lord Avebury, better known to the general public as Eric Lubbock, who caused a sensation back in 1962 when he was elected Liberal MP for Orpington (thus prompting some commentators to wonder whether the all-but-dead-and-buried Liberal Party of Gladstone and Asquith and Grimond was due for a revival), should also endorse those awards; not only is he an avowed Liberal but he is an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society and a Distinguished Supporter of the British Humanist Association:

"I am delighted to send this message of welcome for the Islamophobia Awards Ceremony and for the valuable work of the Islamic Human Rights Commission, and I am proud to have been  involved in some of their work."

But perhaps the most shameful endorsement came from the ludicrous former Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, whose co-religionists are daily being persecuted and slaughtered by adherents of "the religion of peace":

"The fact that prejudice and ignorance are ridiculous doesn’t – unfortunately – make them less lethal. But it is important from time to time to be reminded that they are ridiculous, and that’s why this event is so welcome...."

"Revert" Lauren Booth suggested a winner in her endorsement:

"....Well done IHRC for your sterling work. My vote goes to Bibi Netanyahu for his Outstanding Effort to demonise Islam."

Meanwhile, as doughty pro-Israel blogger Edgar Davidson has noted in a post that deserves more exposure, Britain's supine Anglo-Jewish "leadership" appears to be sliding into dhimmitude: see his post here and be sure to click on his links!

Living In Denial? Anglo-Jewish Leaders Walk Out On Speakers Warning Of Islamic Antisemitism

"I am touching upon the taboos that have to be broken, because a totally false narrative has been created in Europe

The idea that all cultures are the same is absurd. If there is no hierarchy in culture, then Nazi culture is equivalent to democratic Western culture.

There are Islamic groups which are equivalent in their language and ideology to Nazis. And I have no problem in saying that, because it is true."

That, according to a report in the Jewish Chronicle, is what Dr Manfred Gerstenfeld, an acknowledged expert on antisemitism in postwar Europe, and a founder of the Journal for the Study of Antisemitism, said following a walkout of some of the Anglo-Jewish communal personalities (notably from the Community Security Trust ) who, citing "Islamophobia" on the part of Dr Gerstenfeld and Egyptian-born author and activist Bat Ye'or (Gisèle Littman), walked out on a symposium on combating antisemitism that took place at London's Wiener Library recently.  (See Jonathan Hoffman's interesting and illuminating blog on this matter here)

One of the communal figures who reportedly walked out is quoted as explaining:

 "I was appalled by Gerstenfeld’s characterisation of Muslim culture as inferior. Nearly all the speakers on the day, including me, stressed that antisemitism must be understood and opposed within an anti-racist framework"

Bat Ye'or, widow of the late lamented David Littman, and author of Eurabia: The Europe-Arab Axis (2005) and other works including an article entitled "The Palestinization of UNESCO" that I mentioned here, reportedly told the symposium

 "The source of antisemitism is the organisation of the Islamic corporation"

and when the deputy communications director of Anglo-Jewry's Community Security Trust objected to the Islamophobic tone of such remarks, she responded:

"Islam is denying the root of Judaism and Christianity with a profound belief in Jihad."

Since I was not present at the symposium and did not hear the observations that led to frequent interjections and the walkout it would be quite wrong of me to characterise the reaction as that of "Trembling Israelites" or dhimmis.

Yet I'm worried that mainstream communal leaders appear to be echoing the mantra of the group Independent Jewish Voices:

"There is no justification for any form of racism, including anti-Semitism, anti-Arab racism or Islamophobia, in any circumstance."

Fine sentiments in the main: it's the bit about Islamophobia that's the bugbear.

 I'm worried that their evident ensnarement by the very dodgy school of thought that insists that "Islamophobia" (dislike of certain illiberal, antediluvian tenets of a particular worldview) is another side of the coin to the racism that is  antisemitism will blunt their responses to danger, a very real danger posed by radical Islam in Europe.

It would lead them to dismiss as mere hate-speech such warnings as this by the Arab-Christian scholar Raymond Ibrahim:

'These [persecuted] Christians [in the Islamic world] are often identical to their Muslim co-citizens in race, ethnicity, national identity, and language; there is no political dispute, no land dispute.  The only problem is that they are Christian—they are the other—and so must be subjugated, according to Sharia’s position for all “others,” for all infidels—including Israel and the West.

Such is the true nature of Muslim rage throughout the world: it is a byproduct of doctrinal intolerance if not downright hatred for the other, who must always be kept in a state of subjugation and humiliation, according to the letter of the Quran.

Accordingly, while Christian persecution is the clearest example of this hate, it also explains why others are so despised, for example, Israel.

Consider: Christians and Jews are both constantly castigated in the Quran: Muslims are admonished not to befriend either of them (5:51) and to fight and subjugate them “until they pay tribute with willing submission and feel themselves brought low” (9:29).  Christians under Islam are suffering accordingly—as despised dhimmis, abused and “brought low,” routinely plundered of their lives, dignity, and possessions.

On the other hand, Israel—the dhimmi that got away—actually has authority and power over Muslims.  Now, if dhimmis are supposed to be kept in total submission to Muslims, how then when one of them actually lords over Muslims?

Hence Islam’s immense and existential rage against the Jewish state."

As Isi Leibler has observed:

'It is surely high time for Diaspora leaders to stop living in denial and get their act together. Instead of competing with each other in oozing political correctness, they should display some backbone and call a spade a spade.

 We are currently witnessing the greatest revival of global anti-Semitism since the Middle Ages. This permeates all classes of society, and, ranging from academics to illiterates and European leaders who retain office despite making unabashed neo-Nazi remarks about Jews to mobs at anti-Israeli demonstrations carrying placards "gas the Jews".

It encompasses the entire political spectrum, but is spearheaded by liberals and Muslims. Muslim radicals relate to Israel in a manner reminiscent of the Church’s medieval attitude toward the Jews. They promote popular TV programs depicting the blood of Muslim children being used for baking matzot, and have revived The Protocols of the Elders of Zion as a best-seller. They certainly compare favorably with the worst Nazi Jew baiting, with imams quoting genocidal religious texts to the faithful, inciting them to murder Jews, "the descendants of apes and pigs".

It is macabre to observe the alliance between liberals and jihadists who represent the antithesis of everything the Left purports to represent. The extremist Islamists are the most reactionary elements in the world. They reject fundamental human rights, proscribe freedom of expression and religion, promote the degradation of women and, to this day, implement barbaric laws including stoning of adulterers and homosexuals and the amputation of limbs for petty crimes. More than 50 Muslim countries deny Judaism or Christianity equal standing with Islam....

Alas, Jews who exaggerate the presence of Islamophobia become leading proponents of the campaign to sanitize and understate Islamic extremism. This is especially bizarre, given that Jews, especially in Europe, but also increasingly in the US, are facing far greater threats of violence than Muslims. It is also synagogues, rather than mosques, which are continuously being desecrated and vandalized, in many cases by Islamists....

This is an area in which Jews, who have the most to lose, must surely stand up and be counted."

 [Emphasis added]

And while we're on the subject of antisemitism in Britain see the sad report on the plight of Jewish students at Edinburgh University  here

Anglo-Jewry's Leadership: The Problem & The Solution

Many readers will have seen Isi Leibler's latest tour-de-force of an article in the Jerusalem Post. If you have missed it, you simply have to read it, line by line and word for word.  It is a breathtakingly brilliant analysis of what is wrong with an Anglo-Jewish "leadership" stamped by the ethos of "trembling Israelites" and dominated by a unelected hegemonistic plutocracy riding roughshod over elected representatives, squashing dissent, and proving deleterious for Israel advocacy.

But the article does not consist entirely of a jeremiad.  It points to the path that Anglo-Jewry must take, and praises the pioneers who are treading it:

'Chief amongst these is the British Israel Coalition (BIC), a relatively new body headed by Sam Westrop, a talented and dynamic young man. It now has in excess of 5000 members and is growing rapidly, despite the fact that it is denied funding from most of the established Jewish leadership. It holds regular demonstrations, monitors and acts against anti-Israel agitators at all UK universities and aggressively combats Israel boycott movements. It allies itself with other organizations and even introduced pro-Israeli Moslem activists like Hafeez to the forefront of its campaigns.

It is currently expanding operations to promote political lobbying and positive media exposure and publish monthly reports documenting anti-Israeli activity at universities. With a minimal budget it is penetrating areas in which other lavishly funded establishment organizations have made little progress.

BIC recently coordinated a campaign to neutralize the appearance at a major Manchester secondary school of local Islamic extremists raising funds for Hamas who were on record for hailing suicide bombers as freedom fighters, referring to Jews as the descendants of apes and pigs and promoting the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. BIC was castigated by Jewish establishment leaders for indiscreetly exposing the event in the media but the headmaster was forced to cancel the event.

The fledgling body deserves much of the credit for last week’s enforced resignation of the xenophobic anti-Israel Baroness Tonge [pictured] from the Liberal Party following a toxic speech at Middlesex University. It spent months preparing for Israel Apartheid Week and Richard Millett, one of its key activists, filmed the incriminating speeches at the Tonge event and published it on his blog. BIC subsequently coordinated the complaints, presented them to the University and police and on the morning prior to Tonge’s resignation, BIC leader Westrop lobbied the Liberal Democrat Party to take disciplinary action against the incitement by Tonge. The Board of Deputies and JLC sought to take credit for the outcome but it was clearly a product of the determined activists rather than back door whispering.

There is also the Academic Friends of Israel which has been confronting the academic boycott for over ten years. Currently its head Ronny Fraser has a pending legal action of institutional anti-Semitism against the Lecturers Union.

Another recently created body is Lawyers for Israel headed by Jonathan Turner. It actively employs the law to neutralize those seeking to delegitimize Israel and expose Muslim organizations acting as fronts for raising funds for terrorists. It recently intervened, successfully, obliging the Lord Chancellor to formally rebuke a British judge who had exonerated vandals after destroying $300,000 worth of military equipment destined for Israel because of its alleged “immoral” behavior towards Gaza.

None of these independent organizations are funded or supported by the Board or the JLC.

There are also prominent individuals like the indefatigable Daily Mail columnist Melanie Phillips, who is reviled by much of the Jewish establishment for courageously promoting Israel advocacy. She also contributes to the Jewish Chronicle as does urbane historian Geoffrey Alderman who continuously excoriates the Jewish establishment for its cowardice and silence in the face of concerted anti-Israel and anti-Semitic attacks.

Despite the tortuous capitulation under pressure by Board of Deputies vice-president [Joanathan] Arkush [see the entire article], more and more representatives are beginning to express disapproval of the weak approach to Israel adopted by their leaders and increasingly objecting to the dominant communal role of the unaccountable arrogant leaders of the JLC.

That groups like the British Coalition for Israel are enjoying increasing grass roots support is a healthy sign. They represent the only hope that Anglo-Jewry will find the courage to speak up on behalf of Israel and ensure that future generations of young Jews will not follow the example of their elders running for cover and overwhelmed by the torrents of hatred and lies emanating from the current hostile British social climate. They deserve greater support from the community. [My emphasis]'

See also my posts here and here

"Jewish" Book Week too is "Taking the Mick" ...

This is a cross-post by the indefatigable Jonathan Hoffman (pictured), one of the most dedicated pro-Israel activists in the United Kingdom.  The post first appeared at

http://www.thejc.com/blogpost/jewish-book-week-too-taking-mick

I have written on this blog [the Jewish Chronicle blogspot] about the folly of organisations within the Jewish community offering a platform to the enemies of Israel. In the UK, Liberal Judaism has done it (to Jeff Halper of the ICAHD) and also Limmud (to Breaking The Silence and to John Ging of UNRWA).

"Free speech" is all well and good but at a time when Israel is under pathological attack in the "war of the mind", it is barmy for Jewish organisations to put Israel's enemies on a plinth. As we saw in the Mick Davis case, it just gives ammunition to the malefactors (in his case, to the odious Gerald Kaufman - he of the £8865 TV - who cited Davis in his Commons speech against reform of Universal Jurisdiction).

The demented, deranged madness has spread to London's Jewish Book Week. It includes a session with Gideon Levy, discussing his book The Punishment of Gaza. The session is to be chaired by Johann Hari of The Independent.

Let's start with Hari. He has compared Israel to excrement, falsely accusing settlers of allowing untreated sewage to poison the water of Palestinians on the West Bank. This is a blood libel:
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-har...

His columns are full of false quotes which denigrate Israel, e.g. this column:
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-har...

Menachem Begin never called the Palestinians "beasts walking on two legs". Begin was talking, not about "the Palestinians" but about terrorists who target children within Israel:
http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=22&x_article=775

And here Tom Gross quotes a letter from Benny Morris (which The Independent never published) picking up another false quote from Hari:
http://www.tomgrossmedia.com/mideastdispatches/archives/000805.htmlhttp:...

More on horrible Hari here, from the admirable Chas Newkey-Burden:
http://www.oyvagoy.com/2010/03/12/intelligently-and-without-hyperbole/

Unbelievably the session is "in association with the London Review of Books"! The LRB editors are pathological Israel demonisers as shown here:
http://justjournalism.com/reports/london-review-of-books/

Look at what Benny Morris said about this Just Journalism article:

"A good dissection of the articles on the conflict that appeared in the LRB over the past decade. Many contributions are no more than pro-Arab propaganda. On the face of things, it would appear that sending taxpayers’ pounds their way is misguided if not downright hostile toward Israel – which is not British government policy."

(Benny Morris is Professor of History in the Middle East Studies Department at Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel)
http://www.totallyjewish.com/news/burden/?content_id=15398

Johann Hari, who rarely saw a religion-bashing bandwagon he didn't want to hop onto, recently dismissed shechita as nothing more than barbarism originating from "some hallucinating desert nomads".

Someone just emailed me to say "I personally think with Hari that there are so many anti-Jewish dots that it is hard to not join them". S/he's dead right.
http://www.oyvagoy.com/2010/03/12/intelligently-and-without-hyperbole/

Now to Gideon Levy. Levy is discredited in Israel. He admits himself (at an Amnesty meeting I attended) that if he spoke at a meeting in Israel, only a handful of people [would] turn up.

Gideon Levy's reports often have little or no connection to the truth
http://www.camera.org/index.aspx_context=6&x_article=146


He abuses his position as a “journalist” to demonise Israel. He is a self serving propagandist who makes money at the expense of his own people.

http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=2&x_outlet=55&x_article=1016
http://www.theaugeanstables.com/2008/07/28/gideon-levy-twisted-in-knots-...
http://israelseen.com/2010/09/11/gideon-levy-and-uncomfortable-truths/

Just his disgusting misreporting of the rape case a few months ago should prove to all (except the most hardline haters) that he is driven by a hate agenda and that his journalism is therefore akin to fiction.

I urge you to protest to Book Week. The email address is info@jewishbookweek.com

I will be boycotting Book Week this year and any other year when their programming gives a platform to two such vicious mendacious enemies of Israel. Ask yourself whether you should follow suit.

From the Community of the “Trembling Israelites”, Taylor-Made Nonsense attacking Isi Leibler

Owing to distance, I’ve only just received my copy of the 24 December print edition of the Jewish Chronicle, and note that the “Mick Davis Affair” rumbles on in its pages. There’s a big article in support of Davis by new boy on the payroll Orlando Radice, but it was a letter from a Derek Taylor of Hampstead attacking Isi Leibler for daring “to drag the British into his quarrel [with Davis]” that’s the unwitting star of the issue. It’s a tissue of stupidities.

Mr Taylor notes that Leibler claimed that “In the United Kingdom ... demonisation of Israel – not to mention antisemitism – has reached record levels. ”

“What rubbish!” Taylor fumes, with blinkered disregard for the facts.

“Antisemitism in Britain remains as insignificant as it always has been.

Mr Leibler might like to compare it with, for example, the ethnic cleansing of Aborigines in Tasmania in the nineteenth century.”

This childish jibe involves an allegation regarding Tasmania that is actually untrue, as Mr Taylor would know were he au fait with Australian scholar Keith Windschuttle’s magisterial The Fabrication of Aboriginal History: Volume One: Van Diemen's Land 1803-1847 (2002).

“Only two Aborigines have ever been elected to the Australian Senate. How does that compare to the record of the similar number of Jews in Britain?” Mr Taylor asks, with baffling logic, and proceeds to pontificate patronisingly:

“It’s far too easy for non-British Jews to try to equate the treatment they find Jews suffering from in other countries with our situation.

It would be better if they devoted their energies to copying us.”

Mr Taylor is evidently unaware that there have been Jews in Australia from the first day of European settlement; that, just as in Britain, there have been dozens and dozens of Jewish parliamentarians in Australia from the nineteenth-century to this, including a colonial premier (V. L. Solomon), that there have been two Jewish governors-general, and so on.

I don’t know for certain whether Derek Taylor the letter-writer is the Derek Taylor who, with Lord Janner, authored Jewish Parliamentarians (2008), a book about Jewish MPs in Britain that – quite frankly – is full of regrettable and even risible errors and a marked pro-left bias which manifests itself in near-hagiography towards MPs of whose policies they approve and hatchet jobs on certain MPs of whom they disapprove. But if he is, his ignorance of the situation in Australia is underlined by the statement in the book that General Sir John Monash (pictured, who commanded Australia’s Expeditionary Forces in the First World War) was a New Zealander! Oy vey!

KO’d by his own fist, I would say of Mr Taylor – certainly he failed to land a punch at Isi Leibler CBE.