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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To quote from Ms Phillips's denunciation:

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

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

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

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

Read all of Ms Phillips's article here

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

And:

A Wolf in Peacemaker's Clothing, eh, ex-Vicar? (plus videos)

Only a few days now to the launch (6 May, at Christ Church, Virginia Water) of Stephen Sizer's so-called Peacemaker Mediators, with himself as head honcho and at least one of the persons featured in this photo as a member of the International Board of Reference (whatever that means in practice!):

In the countdown to the launch  of the new venture, our old friend the ex-vicar of Virginia Water, now ensconced in Southampton, has thrilled his faithful by bursting onto social media with this meme.

Pretty words, granted.

But actions are more eloquent than words, and NGO Monitor has the following about Sami Awad, the quotation-provider in question, who is founder and executive director of the Holy Land Trust (HLT).

The HLT, it warns,

Conducts highly politicized tours of Israel and the West Bank promoting the Palestinian narrative and targeting church leaders and the international community, claiming to provide “cross cultural and experimental learning opportunities in both Palestine and Israel.” Suggests that its participants “limit information” given to Israeli airport security and hide the reason for their visits.

HLT runs an annual summer program “Palestine Summer Encounter.” Participants have met with representatives from politicized NGOs like Breaking the Silence, BADIL, and Grassroots Jerusalem.

 Sami Awad  ... has stated that non-violent demonstrations are “not a substitute for the armed struggle.”

Beginning in 2010, HLT, alongside Bethlehem Bible College, has organized the Christ at the Checkpoint Conference (CATC), a bi-annual event held in Bethlehem.

 CATC seeks to advance the Palestinian nationalist agenda within Evangelical Christian churches.

When it comes to demonisation of Israel Sami Awad has form.  His organisation

 Accuses Israel of “ethnic cleansing” and signed an “Urgent call to action” during the 2014 Gaza conflict accusing Egypt of “complicity in Israel’s genocide of the people of Gaza.”

 In 2014, Sami Awad joined the “Ads Against Apartheid” campaign, which created billboards displaying to “Americans the devastating human rights abuses by the Israeli military and government against the Palestinian people. When these ads go national in the United States, Americans will start to understand the depth of the suffering Palestinians have endured under the Israeli military occupation.”

In 2013, HLT sponsored a festival in London called “Bethlehem Unwrapped,” featuring “a comedy show called “Stand Up Against the Wall,” a “Bethlehem Christmas dinner,” and a debate titled “Both sides of the Barrier – Separation or Security?” that featured Jeff Halper, founder of the Israeli Committee Against House DemolitionsThe main purpose of the barrier — to protect Israelis from suicide bombings — was erased. The festival was co-sponsored by charities that have exploited the language of morality and human rights to attack Israel for many years, including Amos Trust, Interpal, Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD)-UK, Jews for Justice for Palestinians, and War on Want.

 In 2013, Sami Awad published demonizing rhetoric in Amos Trust’s Bethlehem Packet stating “No matter where you stand in Bethlehem, you can see the effects of the cold grip of this brutal and humiliating occupation.”

Awad has also minimized Israel’s legitimate security needs as a “manipulation” of the fear of another Holocaust. In a speech given at the “Christ at the Checkpoint” Conference in 2010, Awad stated that “the [Israeli] soldier now, who’s gone through that trauma experience [of visiting Auschwitz] now is trained in this weaponry all of a sudden is also put at a checkpoint inside the West Bank, between Palestinian areas.”

 In 2011, HLT produced a film called “Little Town of Bethlehem,” a 77-minute documentary that tells the story “of three men of three different faiths and their lives in Israel and Palestine. The story explores each man’s choice of nonviolent action amidst a culture of overwhelming violence.” Using a façade of multiple viewpoints, however, the film actually presents a single narrative of Palestinian victimization and Israeli violence.

 Speaking at the National Leadership Conference for the Vineyard Church in 2009, Awad told the audience: “We’ve actually done training in non-violence for Hamas leaders and other militant groups as well” (at 01:20:27 in the audio). Hamas is listed as a terrorist organization by the US State Department and the EU. Further, the US Supreme Court upheld a law criminalizing material support for terror organizations. (Holder, Attorney General, et al. v. Humanitarian Law Project et al. 2010.) The law defines “material support” as including “any property, tangible or intangible, or service, including… training, expert advice or assistance…” (See above for details of US government funding of HLT.)

A BDSer?  You betcha!  The HLT

Supports anti-Israel BDS (boycotts, divestment, and sanctions), including signing a petition in May 2005 calling for the academic boycott of Israel.Signatory to the 2005 “Palestinian Civil Society Call for BDS,” which calls for an end to Israel’s “occupation and colonization of all Arab lands” and promotes a right of “Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties. HLT also supports the Kairos Palestine document.

The Kairos Palestine document calls for BDS against Israel, denies the Jewish historical connection to Israel in theological terms, and blames Israel solely for the continuation of the conflict. It also characterizes terrorist acts of “armed resistance” as “Palestinian legal resistance.”

Its purpose is to rally churches globally to support BDS, delegitimization, and demonization directed at the State of Israel.

Partners with Amos Trust, Nonviolence International, Interfaith Peace-Builders, and Peacemaker Gemeinschaft.

 HLT is a member of Alliance for Middle East Peace (ALLMEP), which in contrast to ALLMEP’s stated goals of working toward “peace” and “coexistence,” its members include a number of highly biased and politicized NGOs that promote agendas based solely on the Palestinian narrative of victimization and completely omit Israeli perspectives. Members include: Parents Circle Families Forum (PCFF), Combatants for Peace, OneVoice International, Sikkuy, Women Wage Peace, and others.

For the full information, with links, see here

Incidentally, if you haven't seen David Collier's recent footage of anti-Israel ferals outside SOAS protesting Mark Regev's appearance there, do have a look (first video below).  Much of the footage is sickening, but there are delicious moments, as when London music teacher Deborah Fink is caught passing off non-Jews as Jewish opponents of the Jewish State.  Also featured: soprano Ms Fink's embarrassed warbling, a gay Israel-hater reacting asked how many gay bars there are in Gaza, and an outspoken black antisemite:

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

This lady is prone to lend her soprano tones to demonising Israel, I'm afraid. Here's a particularly infamous instance of her minstrelsy:

More anti-Israel clowns outside SOAS:

Maps, Shmaps, Mr Suarez

American violinist and propagandist against Zionism Tom Suarez, who as described by David Collier unabashedly maligned Israel in a talk at that bastion of Israel-hatred the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London late last year, calling Zionism "a fascist cult", has become excited by some maps.

Like other anti-Zionists before him, he seems to think that the dastardly Zionists will be routed by this revelation:

Sigh.

They don't seem to understand, the Israel-hating brigade, that no matter how many maps and artefacts (and newspapers, posters, football teams, orchestras from the, er, Yishuv!) they trot out with the word "Palestine" embossed upon them the fact remains that there was never a sovereign state of Palestine.

When will these people get it through their heads that the issue is not whether the name Palestine was applied to the Holy Land (it was, by the Romans, in order to erase the Jewish connection with Eretz Israel) but whether there was a sovereign state of Palestine as pro-Palestinian activists such as themselves maintain (there was not, of course, for since its invasion by Romans that land has always been ruled by someone else, latterly the Ottoman Empire, of which it was a backwater)?

Meanwhile, London's School of Oriental Studies (now SOAS), which began life in the first half of lst century as the SOS with a Jewish lecturer in Hebrew, and has since developed into one of the most vicious anti-Israel and antisemitic UK campuses, has Israel's ambassador to the Court of St James in its line of fire:

 'As Mark Regev prepares to speak at SOAS later this month, students have called a protest against his proposed visit

Palestinian students and student societies across SOAS have called a protest on 27 April in response to the proposed visit of Israeli Ambassador Mark Regev. Many staff and students are particularly incensed that management has entered direct negotiations with the Embassy, despite the fact that the visit was initially proposed by two students societies: the UN Society and the Jewish Society.

SOAS management has also agreed to have the Israeli Embassy control security for the event, including allowing the Embassy to take details of everyone entering the meeting. Palestinian students wrote a letter to management outlining their concerns over free speech and safety, which was ignored.

Over one hundred staff members have signed a letter to management strongly opposing the event, and any event that takes place on campus and seeks to normalise the actions of the Israeli state or any other repressive regime. The letter also affirms solidarity with the Palestinian people and in the fight for justice. Here we reprint the statement prepared by student societies at SOAS, and support the call to protest on 27 April at 4pm opposing the presence of Mark Regev on campus.

It has come to our attention that the Israeli Ambassador to the UK, Mark Regev, will be coming to SOAS on the 27th of April at 19:00. Mr Regev is a well known former spokesperson for the Israeli state who came to international prominence through his defence of the brutal and repeated attacks on the besieged Gaza Strip, including the many violations of human rights and international law carried out throughout these operations.   

Firstly [no such word, not-so-learned learned ones; the word you need is 'first'], Mr Regev will be speaking at our University as an official representative of the Israeli state, not in a personal capacity. He is being given the cover of an academic setting to put forward official state positions on the on-going expansion of illegal settlements, the siege of Gaza, land thefts, and discriminatory laws imposed on Palestinian citizens of Israel. This is not an academic debate, informed by fact and reason, it is an official exercise in state propaganda.  

This comes flying in the face of a landslide (73%) SOAS vote that included the entire SOAS community, contract staff, academic staff and students, in favour of endorsing the Palestinian call for an academic boycott of Israeli institutions.The Palestinian Campaign for Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) guidelines, explicitly state the refusal to host official representatives of the Israeli state.   

The response to the announcement of the event only confirms the SOAS community’s stance. For example, over 100 members of the academic staff have already signed a statement rejecting Mr Regev’s presence on campus. 

Secondly, through allowing this event to take place, the school is failing to uphold its basic duty of care to staff and students, Palestinians in particular. Israel’s latest "anti-boycott law" stipulates that individuals (both foreign nationals and Palestinians who hold foreign passports) who publicly support the Palestinian call for Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) for justice and equality, can be banned entry into the country.   

This law is a blatant breach of free speech and academic freedom. It puts SOAS community in an extremely precarious situation, especially since a number of current staff and students have been denied entry into Israel/Palestine. This is despite the repeated efforts by the school to address these questions of academic freedom. Additionally, this law is yet another example of many attempts to dehumanise Palestinian narratives and criminalise movements and individuals striving to hold Israel to account for its violations of international law and human rights. 

The environment created by this event is unsafe for Palestinian students, many of whom have suffered directly at the hands of the Israeli security services. The Ambassador will be accompanied by  armed  embassy  security  personnel (whether the arms are concealed or carried openly). Many students fear for their safety with Israeli security personnel roaming our campus. Palestinian staff and students would be subject to the same questioning and searching they suffered living under military occupation in Palestine should they attend a public event.

Thirdly, SOAS management cannot guarantee that this event will take place within the acceptable boundaries of academic freedom and free speech, free from intimidation of all participants. The School has ignored a letter of concern by Palestinian students who asked how the School proposes to guarantee that information about attendees will not be passed on to the embassy through the ticketing mechanism, and how the School proposes to deal with the presence of armed security personnel on  campus. It is completely abhorrent that SOAS administration has stated that this visit can go ahead without consulting Palestinian students and staff as part of the risk assessment for the event. Effectively excluding Palestinians from this event.  

Indeed, in their latest correspondence to staff, SOAS management claims to be upholding the right to free speech while also taking into account the concerns of all those affected by the event. It is clear that this is not the case as SOAS administration has effectively ignored letters from staff and Palestinian students and refused to engage with Palestinian students especially.

In response, the SOAS community calls on all students, trade unionists, and concerned individuals who believe in the importance of democracy, the right to academic freedom, educational environments free from intimidation and physical threats, and justice for the Palestinian people to join the ‘Apartheid Off Campus’ day on the 27th April in the afternoon at SOAS. A day where the SOAS community will celebrate its diversity and struggles with teach-outs on resistance movements, the situation in Palestine and their relevance in the UK today from 16:00.   

Signed:  •  SOAS Decolonising Our Minds Society •  SOAS Justice For Cleaners •  SOAS Fractionals For Fair Pay •  SOAS Labour Society •  NUS Black Student Campaign  •  SOAS LGBTQ Society •  SOAS Syria Society •  SOAS Palestine Society •  SOAS Israel Society •  SOAS Islamic Society  •  SOAS Iraqi Society •  SOAS Ahlubayt Islamic Society •  SOAS Transnational Diplomacy Association •  SOAS Men’s Football Club •  SOAS Against Human Trafficking •  SOAS Canadian Society •  SOAS Kashmir Solidarity Movement •  SOAS Afghan Society •  SOAS Teach First Society •  SOAS Albanian Society •  SOAS Martial Arts Society •  SOAS Spoken Word Society •  SOAS Kurdish Society •  SOAS MENA Society •  SOAS Goes to Calais •  SOAS Ceilidh Band •  SOAS Herb Society •  SOAS Origami society •  SOAS Shia Theology Society •  SOAS East Africa Network •  SOAS Yemen society •  SOAS India Society •  SOAS Mehfil e Urdu  

 What a shower!

An op-ed here

On a Train, Crazily (video)

Atzmon's April Fool's Day video,  what a meshugge mix!

 

In making this curious video, using footage by pro-Israel investigative journalist/blogger David Collier of a recent meeting at the London School of Economics addressed by Richard Falk and Chris Doyle of CAABU, antisemitic Jew and Israel-hater Gilad Atzmon succeeds only in scoring an own goal.

In attempting to discredit the doughty British campaigner against antisemitism, Jonathan Hoffman (who with a Jewish fellow protester was ejected from the lecture theatre), he demonstrates only that Mr Hoffman (whose courage and dedication in exposing and confronting antisemites on British campuses and elsewhere is legendary) is a hero.

Professor Mary Kaldor, who's Jewish by parentage, is the charming chairperson in Atzmon's (oops, Collier's) footage. 

The woman who appears at the end of the video, called a "witch" by a distraught Jewish student, is the unabashedly antisemitic Pamela Hardiment/Arnold.

As you were, Mr Hoffman.  Carry on, sir!

Roll of Shame

 

Whoops! Pardon me.  The roll I really have in mind is this one, which also belongs in the latrine:

'We are Jews in Britain who support UN Security Council Resolution 2334. This confirms that the establishment of settlements “has no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law”. The resolution demands that “Israel immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory”.

As President Trump takes over at the White House, it becomes ever more important for Jews around the world to stand up publicly on the side of international law, common sense and justice and to welcome this UN Resolution. We know that the great majority of American Jews supported former President Obama. His refusal to veto Resolution 2334 ensured that it would pass, with the unanimous supporting vote of the other fourteen Security Council members, including Britain. And we know that the great majority of American Jews oppose Donald Trump for his racism, sexism, promotion of hatred towards Muslims, and association with white supremacists and blatant antisemites. They will also be alarmed that Trump has appointed David Friedman, a strong supporter of the settlement movement, as the next US ambassador to Israel.

 Here in Britain we also know – from meticulous City University research, overseen by eminent Jewish academics – that the great majority of British Jews are opposed to the settlement project. When leaders of the Board of Deputies declared their opposition to Resolution 2334, they did not speak in our name.

Fifty years of Occupation represents a tragic failure: Israel’s denial of human and civil rights to millions of people; thousands of lives lost, most though not all Palestinian; many hundreds of thousands more, in both Palestinian and Israeli Jewish communities, traumatised by war, hatred and loss of hope.  We ask our fellow Jews in Britain to make our majority voice heard. We must welcome the opening of a door towards a better future for all Israelis and Palestinians by declaring:

No to continuing Occupation…….. No to settlements……… No to settlement expansion…….. No to buying settlement products……… Yes to a just peace.'

Yes, the names on the roll call are pretty well impossible to read on here, even with a magnifying glass. Trust me:   they are those of Jewish and Jew-ish  academics and fellow-travellers who can always be relied upon to malign Israel whenever the clarion call is sounded.   Some have a history of extreme activism against the little Jewish State including support for Ilan Pappe's appalling "One State Declaration". 

The three groups represented:  Jews for Justice for Palestinians (consisting of wet well-meaning dupes along with Jews for injustice for Israel), Independent Jewish Voices, and Jewish Socialists.

A member of the last-mentioned group, a London educator, tells of the ad's reception by the Jewish News, the giveaway paper in London that published my Stephen Sizer 9/11 screenshot, thus leaving the Jewish Chronicle, which had told me it was not interested, with egg on its face after that screenshot image went viral.  Seems that the Jewish Chronicle is all over the place these days:

In London, Jews (and a Muslim) Challenge Antisemitic Lies (videos)

The story behind these videos of his is told by David Collier here

To  set the scene:

03 Nov 2016. I was inside one of the hot spots of radical Islam in London – SOAS. We came to hear Tom Suarez promote his book, State of Terror....

Suarez is an example of how someone can make a new career out of hating Israel without academic training or even a basic historical knowledge of the conflict. His methodology was clear, ‘I hate Zionists/Jews’, but to write a book, I need to make some citations, and he went off to find some....

From the moment Suarez opened his mouth, until his pillar of sand had been swept aside by several people in the room, Tom Suarez built a narrative that was dripping with hard-core antisemitic undertones....

[W]e are left with a rampant demonic force with global control and sinister intent, doing its will between 1937 and 1948. This as six million Jews died. His entire narrative depends on the existence of ‘Elders of Zion’ style control at the very same time as the world shut its doors to Jews and a genocide was committed against them. It is frightening in its sickening inter-dependency.

He gives Jews global control as they lay dying in Auschwitz. He suggest Zionist Jews ‘twisted’ Truman’s arm and Truman “always did as he was told”. There were brutally obscene comments, such as one discussing an atmosphere of diminishing global antisemitism in 1946 as Europe was knee deep in Jewish corpses....

 I lost count of the number of Nazi analogies. Everything the Zionists did was comparable to Nazi Germany."

Is it any wonder, then, that Jews in the audience reacted with emotional outrage?

Here's doughty Zionist stalwart Jonathan Hoffman, quick off the mark to ask the opening question from the floor:

Here's a lady, her voice breaking at times with hurt and indignation, demanding to know why Suarez ignores Arab violence.

Here's a Muslim gentleman with a message the Israel-demonisers would rather not hear, about Israel's diversity and egalitarianism:

Here's a lady with some home truths about the expulsion of Jews from Arab lands:

A Campus Cri de Couer: "He's on the Internet praising martyrs" (video)

Explains the maker and uploader, Israel Advocacy Network:

'Published on Oct 28, 2016

Last night police were called to rescue Jewish students from anti-Israel thugs at University College London, at the same time SOAS PalSoc had invited notorious Hamas apologist Tareq Radi to speak at the campus.

Universities must do more to keep extremists off British campuses'

 Footage of disgusting intimidation of pro-Israel students here

More here

And here

"It is Clear That Many British Muslims Reserve a Special Hatred for British Jews"

An interesting article's just appeared by an Arab supporter of Israel regarding the moral bankruptcy of BDS and how it is damaging the Palestinian people.

It's by Fred Maroun, who was born and grew up in Lebanon, left that country in 1984, and now lives in Canada.

But have you read David Collier's latest blogpost?

It's a real disturbing eye-opener regarding what's going on across British campuses.

And as Mr Collier has remarked today on social media:

Can we now put the question "is BDS antisemitic?" to bed please. I've been to scores of events on campus, and yes, I have heard plenty of rabid antisemitism. But that was always just my experience, my opinion. Until yesterday. We have a few things to build on. We know that without the Palestinian and Islamic societies BDS wouldn't get any airtime at all. We know that standing for positions with the student unions is being used as a way of pushing the BDS cause. We know that on many campuses, especially in the south, events that BDS hold have a mainly Muslim audience. During Apartheid week, in the count for the events I attended, it was always above 70%.

So what do we know now. We know that many of these people in the BDS audience, supporting Apartheid week, think adultery is a crime worth stoning. We know that there is huge support for Sharia law implementation amongst them (rather than democracy), we know that they do not on the whole support freedom of speech, that they have a real problem with gays and of course, that there is a problem with antisemitism.

Which means that in the BDS room.... in the room that just coincidentally happens to have a problem with the Jewish state, there are gay hating, Jew hating, freedom hating, liberty hating people pretending to support a humanitarian cause, just so another one of their pet hates gets fed. And we also now know we are not talking about just a 'tiny minority of them'. It is done now, the argument is over. Whatever BDS inside a book (in theory) might be, we know that in practice much of the crowd is antisemitic. The university has to recognise this and end the practice on campus. BDS is a wagon of antisemitsm.. It is time to force the people off the bus.

And more essential if depressing reading.

 'For at least twenty years, the British Jewish community has been out in front when it comes to interfaith work. As Britain’s Muslim population has grown, British Jews assumed that interfaith models that led to huge advances in relations with British Christians, could apply just as well to relations with British Muslims. Indeed building bridges with British Muslims has become the focus of outreach work by British Jews.

Today, our analysis of the ICM survey of British Muslims for Channel 4 and Juniper Television shows that the gradual buildup of understanding and friendship between Britain’s Jews and Muslims has been utterly eclipsed by growing antisemitism amongst British Muslims.

On every single count, British Muslims were more likely by far than the general British population to hold deeply antisemitic views. It is clear that many British Muslims reserve a special hatred for British Jews, rating Jews much less favourably than people of other religions or no religion, yet astonishingly British Muslims largely do not recognise antisemitism as a major problem.

It has long been suspected that sections of the British Muslim population harboured hatred towards British Jews. This survey goes some way to identifying pockets of prejudice, but it also shows that the prejudice is horrifyingly widespread.

From the ICM survey data made available by Channel 4 and Juniper Television, we have been able to identify some of the worst pockets of prejudice. Antisemitic British Muslims are more likely to be men, to be older than 35, to be social renters, to be in employment, to have been born outside Britain, to live south of the Midlands in England, or in Scotland, and they are overwhelmingly likely to sympathise with terrorism, violence and extremism.

The data is frustratingly limited in one [sic] some respects, and one in particular: it does not delve into the various political and religious movements that comprise the British Muslim population.This data shows that Jews remain the "canary in the coal mine", as they have been throughout history: those who harbour hatred of Jews also hate British society and sympathise with our most deadly enemies. Britain must confront rampant antisemitism within its Muslim population, but also amongst the general population, whose shocking views should be no less concerning simply because the views of British Muslims are worse.'

See the results of the survey with analysis and full report here

Another county heard from: arch-secularist Keith Porteous Wood:

 But at least he's apologised ...

The Hiss of Hass

"David Collier, David Collier, the website to watch!"

British readers of a certain vintage will realise immediately that the above sentence paraphrases a famous advertising jingle for a (now defunct) chain of High Street tailoring stores: "John Collier, John Collier, the window to watch!"

 David Collier runs the always compelling and sometimes spell-binding British pro-Israel blog Beyond the Great Divide.

His latest post concerns an odious analogy made at what seems to have been essentially an anti-Israel hatefest at the University of Kent  by a certain female Israeli journalist (the hint as to who is on my play on words in my header).

Writes David Collier inter alia, in a formal complaint to the university:

"....The horror that modern antisemitism is being spread in campus, amongst the educated, rather than in the deprived neighbourhoods, makes it a considerable threat. One that the University of Kent just assisted. Over here of course, they translate the word ‘Jewish’ as ‘Zionist’ to evade censure, then they can say anything they like. Last week, on the FB [Facebook] timeline of someone advertising your event, I saw a comment of ‘just kill all the Jews’. Two minutes later it had been changed to ‘Bastard Zionists’. In the mind of the author they are one and the same.

As a Jew in the UK there will be no running. I will not sit down and ignore the fact that antisemites are taking control of the streets and the campus. I will not silently turn my back as if I do not know where this road leads. I will not let the University of Kent provide a stage for the [Tsarist era forgery] Elders of Zion and walk away as if I just have to accept it.

A simple apology is not good enough. 200 people left the room having been fed antisemitism on your campus. These people need to be told that what they applauded was antisemitism. Each of those people is a little bit more ‘extreme’ than they were before hearing the speech. Some had a pure ‘fix’ for their addiction. And the Jews in the UK? Well, we are all just a little bit less safe than we were.

I heard mention of the Elders of Zion in your university. I heard talk of Jewish conspiracies. I look forward to receiving your thoughts."

Be sure to read all of David Collier's complaint here and his connected post (with video of the Hass speech) here

Meanwhile, another excellent British pro-Israel blogger, the intrepid Richard Millett,who frequently goes where others fear to tread, describes here his despicable treatment at a recent anti-Israel hatefest in London.

Hamlet Without The Prince At The London School of Economics

One of my favourite British bloggers, the cerebral Mr Davidson, has a must-read post here:

As he has observed:

 "Given the recent furore over anti-Israel 'academic' events at Southampton University and Exeter University, it seems something possibly even worse slipped under the radar: the LSE's Middle East Centre recently ran a workshop about Israel, but only invited anti-Zionist activists to speak"

What is especially commendable is that he doesn't merely blog about such malice; where appropriate he tackles the perpetrators demanding answers ...

In Britain, A Scholarly Roll of Shame

343 UK scholars have declared support for an academic boycott of Israel, taking out a full page ad in that rag of iniquity The Guardian today.

Here's the roll of shame:

No need to rush to Specsavers or search for a magnifying glass: read more on this here

Declares Joy Wolfe, the redoubtable chairperson of StandWithUs UK:

' StandWithUs UK strongly condemns the call from British academics to boycott Israel. This move does nothing to help the Palestiians and potentially damages the long standing mutually beneficial links that are so important to both the UK and Israel. We welcome the strong statement from British Ambassador David Quarrey condemning the boycott call and reaffirming the UK's anti boycott commitment. Ambassador Quarrey reiterated the importance of the significant and fruitful relationship shared by Israel and the United Kingdom.

 "The British Government firmly opposes calls to boycott Israel. We are deeply committed to promoting the UK’s academic and scientific ties with Israel, as part the flourishing partnership between the two countries," he said in a statement.

 "The reality is one of rapidly strengthening trade and tech links between Britain and Israel. As David Cameron has said, the UK Government will never allow those who want to boycott Israel to shut down 60 years worth of vibrant exchange and partnership that does so much to make both our countries stronger," he added.

 Israeli academics should look closely at the names of those signing the boycott letter and ensure they do not further the double standards of the boycotters wishing to continue personal links'.

The well-known left-leaning Zionist academic David Hirsh of Goldsmith's College, London University, who runs the Engage website, had this to say when a Guardian journalist contacted him for comment:

"The campaign to single out Israelis for exclusion from the global academic community is highly menacing.

It seeks to punish Israeli scholars for the crimes, both real and imagined, of their government in a way that is quite inconsistent with our usual attitude to fellow scholars and with our own relationships to our own governments.

We have learnt that the drive to punish Israelis brings in its wake antisemitic exclusions and antisemitic ways of thinking here on UK campuses. We have seen Jews who don't support the boycott denounced as Nazis and racists.

The boycott campaign sets up a presumption that Jewish academics are in some sense collaborators, a presumption which pressurises Jewish colleagues to keep quiet, to put on displays of political cleanliness or to stand in the dock for Israel.

The boycott campaign rejects the politics of peace, a politics in which Israeli academics have always been central. Instead it embraces the politics of silencing, the politics of war by other means, the politics of waving one national flag against the other. We ought to build links between UK universities and Palestinian and Israeli ones, not try to smash them; we ought to communicate more, not less; we ought to be for peace not for war.

We ought to support Israelis and Palestinians who stand up against racism and antisemitism, not throw them to the wolves of Hamas and the Israeli settler right.

My fear for what will happen on campus is heightened by the fact that the current Labour leader supports this kind of exclusionary politics. This will heighten the sense that many Jewish academics have, that the culture on our campuses is still deteriorating."

 Maybe it's worth revisiting Edgar Davidson's spoof on academic Israel-haters here

One ardent British Zionist comments on social media,

"An openly pro-Israel British Jewish student would surely not want any contact with these teachers."

 It's hard to disagree.

Numb Bums & Numbskulls: The spinning wheels go round & round

Pedalling that mendacious map set

The Big Ride for Palestine (Edinburgh to London) ended on Sunday.

A fundraising event on behalf of the Middle East Children's Alliance (MECA), it was, as the images on its website suggest, also a well-calculated propaganda campaign against the Jewish State.

Look, for instance, at this map set, the inaccuracy of which has been exposed (to no avail) time and time again, and at this pictorial plea for the "Right of Return".

Indeed, the "Right of Return" appears to be an integral plank in the policy of the Middle East Children's Alliance itself.

Declared Dr. Mona El-Farra, Vice President of the Red Crescent Society for the Gaza Strip
Gaza Director of MECA in an online message to participants:

“With every mile you ride, you are protesting against 67 years of Israeli ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.

You are sending a message to the Palestinian people in general and to the people of the Gaza strip in particular that they are not abandoned. You are bringing hope to millions of Palestine children for whom life has been scarred by trauma and fear. You are siding with millions of displaced 1948 Palestinian refugees who still have the keys to their homes from which they were uprooted by force. You are breaking barriers that separate human beings who should be equal regardless of race, colour or religion. 

We dream of a day when we can welcome you to cycle in free Palestine to enjoy the beauty of our country that has been devastated by long decades of Israeli occupation, dispossession, and annihilation. We appreciate your solidarity; we salute you all for your humanity.”

 NGO Monitor provides the following facts about MECA (links at site):

'Founded in 1988, based in Berkeley, California

Goal: “We educate North Americans about children in the region and the brutal impact of US foreign policy on their lives.”

“MECA relies on the support of individuals dedicated to peace and justice in the Middle East.” Further details were not found.

According to the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) website, “[t]he Middle East Children’s Alliance is the fiscal sponsor for ISM-USA.” Donations for ISM’s campaign to “interfere with the construction of the annexation barrier” can be made to “MECA (ISM-USA Fund).”

MECA organizes delegations to “Palestine/Israel” where participants can “witness the impact of the Israeli occupation and…learn about refugees, land confiscation, political prisoners…” Trip highlights include learning “about the origins of the Palestinian refugees and the Right of Return, and how it can be implemented” (emphasis added).

MECA founder and Executive Director Barbara Lubin wrote “I think that the Jewish State is racist to the core.”  Lupin refers to the 1948 “ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian population” and wrote that “[t]he concept of ‘Jewish morality’ is truly dead. We can be fascists, terrorists, and Nazis just like everybody else.”  [Emphasis added]

In an interview, MECA Director of Gaza Projects, Dr. Mona El-Farra, explained that MECA refused USAID funding because it came with the condition that they promise “not [to] give any help or any aid whatsoever for the families of the militiamen, or their relatives, or anyone related to ‘terrorist attacks’” because “we consider it resistance” (emphasis added).

MECA raised funds for British MP George Galloway’s “Viva Palestine” convoy “following the massacre in Gaza.”

Partners include pro-Palestinian groups such as Addameer, Badil, the Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign, Bat Shalom, and Gaza Community Mental Health Programme (GCMHP). Also partners with the Lajee Center, which refers to the “Israeli regime of Apartheid, colonization, and belligerent occupation.'"   [Emphasis added]

The Big Ride was endorsed by a great many of the usual suspects ranging from a prominent "As-a-Jew" through show biz B-listers to London mayoral hopeful George Galloway ("The idea of 1,000 cyclists barrelling down from Edinburgh to London, parliament to parliament, carrying the message that we must come to the aid of the beleaguered men, woman and children in what is an open air prison is immensely powerful") and film director Ken Loach ("More and more people are becoming aware that justice for the Palestinians is the great cause of our time") and a number of MPs, including front-running Labour leadership contender Jeremy Corbyn, whose message of encouragement read:

“The Palestinians have suffered and continue to do so, from Israeli bombardment in Gaza, and the Occupation of the West Bank.  This ride is in solidarity of cyclists in Britain to raise money for aid to Palestine, but also to politically draw attention to the desperate need for the British government to act and respect the parliamentary decision to recognise Palestine, which clearly has not yet been incorporated into government policy. This ride has my total support and I trust that much more support will pour in from our community and notably from those who are so well aware of the injustices metered out to the Palestinians.”

 The wheels of the Big Ride cyclists are not, of course, the only examples of spin we've seen in recent days.

Here are more examples:

And of course there's this forthcoming conference, at which, sad to relate, two Australians will be prominent, one of whom, Arentinian/Israeli Marcel Svirsky, will be familiar to regular readers of my blog as the bloke who walked from Sydney to Canberra to present a pro-BDS petition to Federal Parliament (see here and here).  (Judging from his Facebook page, Dr Svirsky is a far leftist.)

Conference on Settler Colonialism in Palestine & Workshop on the Naqab Bedouin

Call for papers

An Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies conference

Date    2 - 4 October 2015
Time    Event spans several days
Place    Institute of Arabic and Islamic Studies

The study of settler colonialism as an historical, geographical and political formation is attracting the attention of more and more scholars around the globe. Our effort will be oriented towards the examination of the settler colonial paradigm’s validity in the context of Palestine. The organisers encourage interdisciplinary and comparative approaches to the study of settler colonialism in Palestine, so as to build bridges between settler colonial studies and other disciplines, as well as to challenge Israel’s alleged exceptionality.

Confirmed Speakers:

    Prof. Nur Masalha, St Mary’s University, Twickenham, London, UK.
    Prof. Ilan Pappe, University of Exeter, UK.
    Dr. Marcelo Svirsky, University of Wollogong, Australia.
    Prof. Lorenzo Veracini, Swinburne University

 The organisers encourage interdisciplinary and comparative approaches to the study of settler colonialism in Palestine, so as to build bridges between settler colonial studies and other disciplines, as well as to challenge Israel’s alleged exceptionality.

We encourage prospective contributors to engage with the following questions:

What is the nature of Israel’s colonisation of Palestine? How does it manifest itself in different political, economic, social, as well as material and ideational arenas?
    How do settler colonial structures affect different forms of resistance?
    How are settler colonial narratives articulated (and disarticulated)?
    How has Israel’s settler colonial project impacted upon Palestine’s social, demographic, political and economic landscapes?
    How does settler colonialism intersect with global processes such as neo-liberalism, imperialism and war?
    How does Israeli settler-colonialism relate to the Israeli nation-state building project?
    How does resistance against the settler colonial regime by the indigenous Palestinian population relate to and articulate itself within/vis-à-vis the Palestinian national struggle?

 See more here and a letter of concern from the Board of Deputies here

Wicked Way Won: BRISMES & BDS

In my previous post I wondered whether the Israel-haters demanding that BDS be placed on the agenda of the BRISMES conference this week at the London School of Economics would get their wicked way.

Guess what?  They have.

Here's the lowdown:

Panel 6e. BDS and Political Mobilization

Chair: Paul Kelemen

[For his take on the Left and Zionism, in a talk to the Modern History Group at the University of Sheffield, see the video here; the first few minutes of this 58 minute footage will probably suffice for most people]

 The BDS Movement and the Question of Radical Democracy
John Chalcraft, LSE

This paper focuses on the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement for Palestinian rights. The movement arose in Israel/Palestine in the wake of the failure of the Oslo Process in the early 2000s and has since attracted increasing support and publicity translocally. It has been characterized by its critics as an “anti-Semitic poison pill” (Brackman). By contrast, this inter-disciplinary paper, drawing on desk-based research, activist archives, and extensive participant observation, explores the radically democratic characteristics of the movement. Treating the movement as an instance of contentious mobilisation, the paper compares BDS activism with other networked, horizontalist, diverse, de-centralized and translocal movements that have emerged in and out of the region since the 1990s in a period of globalisation. The primary goal is ontological: how can we best characterise this mobilising project, with its identities, principles, and goals on the one hand, and its repertoires of contention (organization, strategies and tactics) on the other? The aim is to compare and contrast this mobilising project with both democratic-diverse and anti-democratic-essentialist forms of activism. The paper argues that the radically democratic characteristics of the BDS movement deserve recognition, while maintaining, against the conventional wisdom, that even in highly-networked and seemingly horizontal activism, leadership, strategic interventions, structure, coordination, mobilisation, and well-defined ends play important roles. The paper also draws out homologies between the BDS movement and other democratic movements of recent origin in the region. The paper contributes to debates about what it means to speak of anti-doctrinal and anti-hierarchical forms of contemporary organizing, while developing our understanding of a movement that is playing an increasingly important role on the regional and international scene.

BDS and the Politics of Academic Research
Lori Allen, SOAS, University of London

In her essay “Lying and Politics,” Hannah Arendt proclaimed that the truth-teller necessarily forfeits his position and the validity of what he has to say if he tries to interfere directly in political affairs. In this paper I will argue that such a balancing scale, in which any weight on the politics side lightens the gravitas on the truth side, must be questioned. Much of the world wants their scholarship courteous, their scholars impartial, independent, objective, and a-political. Many people tend to mistakenly equate those things. This is tantamount to asking scholars to renounce their citizenship at the door of the ivory tower. The expectation that scholars and scholarship should be free of politics as a pre-requisite for research validity is itself a political imposition. In this paper I reflect on the various ways in which these kinds of arguments about the necessarily a-political nature of “valid” scholarship are mobilized by those seeking to thwart the BDS campaign for Palestinian rights. Ultimately, this paper argues that research on Palestinian society and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is political, can be political, and should be political. The challenge is to maintain the wider credibility and authority of our scholarship, which is really the only way of ensuring its political, public relevance.

Comparing the Academic Boycott of Israel in Britain and the United States
Suzanne Morrison, LSE [who won this prize]

The Palestinian call for an academic boycott of Israel asks academics and cultural workers around the world to boycott Israeli academic and cultural institutions in support of the Palestinian struggle. This paper critically investigates the conditions under which academic boycotts of Israel have taken shape in Britain and the United States. In particular, this paper compares how debates and motions passed in British academic unions have been instrumental to the development of an academic boycott in Britain, whereas in the US, academic associations have played a key role. This comparative case study seeks to illustrate two examples of organizing for academic boycotts against Israel to determine how the movement has developed across borders. This paper argues that context-specific political environments and activist organizational dynamics have required differing strategies for achieving campaign goals, thereby contributing to the broader movement’s capacity for organizational flexibility and hybridity. In considering academic boycotts of Israel in Britain and the United States, this paper sheds light on the movement’s organizational structure and processes, and supplements existing literature on the contemporary dynamics of border-crossing social movements.

Who?

The Meaning of BDS in the History of Palestinian Struggle
Gilbert Achcar, SOAS [who will need no introduction to readers of Richard Millett's blog]

This paper will explore the meaning of BDS in the history of Palestinian liberation strategies. The post-1948 period of reliance on Arab states for the recovery of Palestinian territory by war came to an abrupt end with the Arab defeat in June 1967. The changing strategic conditions of the Arab-Israeli conflict meant that the prospect of a victory over Israel in a military confrontation with Arab states became obsolete. Far from disproving this fact, the October 1973 war fully confirmed it. The 1967 Arab defeat was followed by an illusory strategy of Palestinian “people’s liberation war” that took Algeria as its model. In turn, this strategy was dealt a mortal blow with the defeat of the Palestinian armed movement in Jordan in 1970, only to open the door gradually to a strategy of diplomatic pressure on Israel led by Arab oil monarchies. The latter was no less illusory. The Palestinian Intifada of 1988 showed the possibility and efficiency of another much more realistic strategy, one in which the Palestinians would counter Israel’s crushing military superiority by appropriate means of popular struggle. However, it lacked then an accompaniment on the strategically indispensable level of international pressure. The Intifada was thus co-opted by the PLO for its diplomatic strategy, the failure of which is more blatant than ever nowadays. BDS is the accompaniment that was missing in 1988. It now needs to link up again with a popular Intifada on the model of that of 1988.

Source here
Hat tip: E.B.

Meanwhile, more mischief from the PSC:

In Britain, Another Brainwashed Bunch Votes For BDS

Norwich is the cathedral city in England's East Anglia region which has the dubious honour of being remembered in the history books as having been the scene, in the twelfth century, of the first blood libel of medieval times.

In the late twentieth century one of Britain's several "new universities" was established in Norwich, the University of East Anglia.

The students of this pleasantly situated seat of learning have evidently swallowed the blood libels in modern dress that run rampant against the little State of Israel, for their union has voted in favour of BDS.

Scroll down to the final item here to read the motion and its supporting documentation in all their Israel-demonising crap.

Or if that'll prove too much like contemplating used toilet tissue, read the synopsis provided below.

As reported here:

'The University of East Anglia's student body has endorsed the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, in a motion passed last Thursday.

Meeting for the final time this academic year, the Council of the Union of UEA students passed the motion "in support of international law and human rights in Palestine" with 41 in favour and 15 against, with 11 abstentions.

The motion commits the SU to severing ties with companies that "facilitate Israel's human rights abuses, military capacity, or settlement expansion", as well as to opposing any university contract with complicit companies.

 The SU also resolved to lobby the university "to adopt an academic boycott of Israeli universities" and provide scholarships for Palestinian students.

The motion describes Israel as "an apartheid state" and mentions specific crimes and abuses including illegal settlements, atrocities in Gaza, and "systematic" discrimination in both the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) and inside Israel's pre-1967 lines.

Israel's "expansion" in the oPt is described as "a settler-colonial project, predicated on the ethnic cleansing and expulsion of its indigenous people."

Proposed by a member of the campus Amnesty International group [Alex Bustos] and seconded by the Ethnic Minorities Officer [Hussam Hussein], the motion notes recent pro-BDS resolutions at NUS National Executive Council, NUS Women's Conference, NUS Postgraduate Conference and NUS Black Students Conference.

In addition, it was recalled that students have voted for boycotts of Israel on campuses across the UK, including "Kent, Goldsmiths, Birkbeck, Kingston, Swansea, Exeter, Brunel, the University of Strathclyde, Edinburgh, Dundee, Essex, Sussex and SOAS."

The case for BDS, according to the motion, is based on "Israel's multitude of human rights and international law violations" and its lack of accountability. The motion affirms Palestinian students' right to education unhindered by discrimination, and the necessity of international solidarity from students in response to the BDS campaign.

The motion asserts that "global boycotts are a non-violent, legitimate and effective tactic", that "all other methods of pressuring Israel and the ending of the occupation have failed," and that members of an academic community "have a responsibility to ensure that ethical considerations and social justice are at the heart of research and academia."

The Union Council rejected a proposed amendment which would have removed BDS from the motion. Procedural motions to delay the vote were also voted down.'

Ironic that Amnesty International has declined to single out antisemitism specifically for condemnation, yet one of its campus reps on the UEA campus has no hesitation in singling out Israel, and Israel alone, for Boycott, Divestment and Sanction. 

Why Professor Geoffrey Alderman Is Wrong Regarding The Southampton Conference: A professor writes ...

Below is a guest blog by Professor William Rubinstein, who has held chairs of history at Deakin University in Australia and at the University of Wales, and who like Professor Geoffrey Alderman has written books and articles on Anglo-Jewish history.

This guest blog criticises Professor Alderman's contention in the Jewish Chronicle here that the cancellation of the scheduled conference at Southampton University entitled "International Law and the State of Israel: Legitimacy, Responsibility and Exceptionalism" is unjustified and regrettable.

Writes Professor Rubinstein:

Many of Professor Geoffrey Alderman's columns in the Jewish Chronicle are perceptive and cogent.

But many are not, and his most recent column – "An own goal in Southampton" – is not. In fact, it is totally wrong and mischievous, and I would be surprised if many of his normal supporters would agree with him.

The proposed Conference at Southampton University, which was to be held on 17-19 April, is not an academic conference in the normal sense.

By definition, academic discussions entail a variety of opinions, and, by definition, the organisers of academic conferences, while they may have a private opinion about the subject of the conference, even one passionately held, are neutral and scrupulously fair-minded about the presentation of contrary opinions

From its nature, the Southampton conference is the very opposite of a normal academic conference which is value-neutral on the subject under discussion.

This conference is, on the contrary, an academic lynch mob which makes no secret of its predetermined stance.

Its Organisers' Statement available online makes this clear: the conference exists to examine the "ongoing forced displacement of Palestinians and associated injustices" and one of its aims is "to educate a whole new generation [sic] of young Palestinian legal and political scholars about new possible arguments and concepts in order to use International Law better [sic]  in a way that expands legal argument beyond the '1967 occupation' discourse" [sic; – turgid language, poorly expressed and almost incomprehensible, is often part of the rhetoric of the far left, even – indeed, especially – at universities].

The organisers have provided an online list of the speakers and their topics at the conference, which makes for interesting reading and leaves one in no doubt how utterly unfair it is.

Apart from Alderman's paper, every one of the other fifteen or so papers at the gathering are venomously hostile to Israel's existence as a state, invariably from the international  Loony Left.

"On Comparative Settler Colonialism and American Expansionism,""Zionist Colonisation Strategies in Palestine," and "Israel and the Crimes of Apartheid: A Systematic Perspective" are typical examples of the fare to be served up.

It does not appear to have entered Geoffrey Alderman's head that he is obviously and manifestly being used as the token Zionist at an anti-Zionist hate-fest in order to give it some fig leaf of respectability as a bona-fide academic conference, of which it is the very opposite.

One wonders, too, if he, or any other Jewish spokesman would have taken part in a conference organised in Nazi Germany on the topic: "The Jewish Race: A Mortal Danger to Aryan Germany"?

How many would have dignified the topic and its assumptions by criticising this "viewpoint," in an audience composed in all likelihood of Storm Troopers, the SS, and other assorted thugs, every one of whom was an antisemite and a Hitler worshipper?

Not many, and nor should they.

Meanwhile ....

Alderman's point that many of the conference supporters are academics is also without merit: many of the most sedulous supporters of the Nazis in Germany, including at least two Nobel Prize winners, were academics or those with a string of degrees, for instance Dr. Goebbels.

I would personally have no objection to a bona-fide academic conference whose title was "Mandate Palestine in 1948: Contested Histories" or the like, in which a clash of opinions
– a genuine clash – is to be expected and encouraged.

The Southampton conference is the very opposite of this.

And if the organisers of this conference want to relocate to a non-academic venue and hold a tendentious  gathering unconnected with a university, that is their business.

A Hamas training camp in southern Lebanon suggests itself as an appropriate venue.