Anti-Israel Shenanigans in the Land of Song



Anti-Israel fanatic spraying antisemitic graffiti in Swansea

 I have it on impeccable evidence that last Wednesday was a scorcher in the frequently rainy Welsh seaside resort that "boasts" the westernmost Palestine Solidarity Campaign branch in the mainland UK.  Anticipating large crowds on the streets during such sunshine, the four women - two middle-aged and two elderly - who are the staples of that PSC branch were out early, setting up a stall bearing collecting tins and Israel-demonising literature from head office.

Up went the Palestinian flags - four in all. Up went a banner asking "Whatever Happened to Palestine?" And up went a placard saying "End the Siege on Gaza".

One of the middle-aged stalwarts (halachically Jewish, she happens to be) buttonholed passers-by near the stall, and one of the two elderly sidekicks performed the same task on the opposite pavement.  The other two took it in turns to man the stall and to wish "Have a Nice Day" to anyone accepting the proffered literature or (rare birds, these) who approached the stall to peruse the other stuff on display (an anti-Israel petition, those four well-known maps purporting to show Israel's land grab in periodic stages).

But not before the two leaflet distributors had posed for their picture, grinning proudly as they held up "Boycott Ahava" flyers while one of their cohorts snapped away.

While all this was going on the local Liberal Democrat MP rushed out of the LibDem office a block away, and crossed the street.  He was evidently in a hurry, perhaps to catch a train.  But as he was about to turn into the street leading to the railway station he espied the anti-Israel foursome.  He dashed over, tapped the middle-aged leaflet distributor on the shoulder, smiled broadly, said something encouraging (he's as anti-Israel as she is, judging by his record hitherto) and sped away.

Not that the Welsh nationalist party, Plaid Cymru, is any better disposed to Israel than are so many LibDems (Welsh or otherwise); the Plaid Cymru MEP Jill Evans is a veteran Israel demoniser (http://www.jillevans.net/jill_evans_english.html)

All of which is a far cry indeed from that great pro-Zionist Welshman, David Lloyd George, whose Cabinet promulgated the Balfour Declaration.  I would be willing to bet that Lloyd George's empathy for Israel, which can be traced to his Sunday School days, also owed something to his close friendship with the founder of the prominent jewellery firm Wartski's when it was based in its birthplace, Llandudno, and he was its solicitor.

Just as much of Welsh philosemitism stems from the Old Testament-oriented chapel-going tradition, so much of Welsh antipathy towards Israel derives from the hard leftism of the industrial south.

The following videos show Welsh Israel-haters behaving badly. 

Here they are protesting a visit to Cardiff in 2008 by the Israeli Ambassador in the UK, Ron Prosor; note the cry "Nazis of the twenty-first century!" yelled by an obvious far-leftist:

They're cheered on by these women of a certain age, presumably old unreconstructed far-leftists.  The presence of elderly women is a not uncommon phenomenon in choral street protests against Israel, I've found repeatedly. (What is the attraction of the Arab cause for such gals? And why do they raise their voices against no other country but Israel?)

Here the demonisers are in a Swansea supermarket (the two who damaged the goods taken from inside later walked free when the judge dismissed the case against them); again. why the obsession with Israel of all nations around the globe?:

And here they are in Cardiff, with seemingly ubiquitous campaigner Dee Murphy, the woman who starred in the supermarket video, starring in this.  Defending Hamas rockets into Israel, she says "we all have a right to defend ourselves" - evidently that principle does not apply to Israel. This super-glued bunch probably need hearing aids if they think the BBC is biased in favour of Israel!

See more here: http://swanseaactionforpalestine.blogspot.com/2010/07/swansea-city-council-ban-future.html

No Welcome in the Hillside: The War Against Zionism is both Macro and Micro

On 21 July this year the Jerusalem Post carried a humdinger of an article by Welsh-born Shimon Cohen entitled “Would We Say it in Public?”  Inter alia, he called for the pride of Jewish youth in the Jewish State and its achievements to be rekindled.

My own solution to this problem – a partial one, anyway – can be found in my very first blog post, in which I argued that, however high the financial cost, a far worse cost will ensue if Israel fails to establish what’s often been mooted and is long overdue – a satellite television station to counter the remorseless anti-Israel propaganda that is encountered on such channels as BBC, CNN, Al Jazeera, and Press TV. The humanitarian endeavours and the medical and scientific breakthroughs that regularly emerge from Israel, yet receive scant attention in a media that prefers to present the Jewish State as an imperialistic militaristic leviathan, would be given the publicity they deserve – and desperately need. This would help to balance the negative images of Israel by a biased media that are influencing and eroding support for Israel among sections of the public, particularly in Britain and other parts of Europe, and to the apathy if not antipathy towards Zionism that we are told engulfs many Jewish young people today.

“Growing up, Israel was at the very heart of my Jewish being”, wrote Shimon Cohen.

”Not identifying as a Zionist was out of the question. My parents and grandparents carried living memories of Jewish statelessness – discrimination, pogroms and ultimately the Holocaust.

As their generations diminish, so does our appreciation of what it was to be a Jew in a world without Israel.

As a child in 1960s Wales, I was inspired by the miracle of Jewish redemption in our ancient homeland.

My bedroom was adorned with posters of Golda Meir and Moshe Dayan. Unlike most British Jewish children today, I had never set foot in Eretz Yisrael. But I knew its geographical features and landmarks as well as I knew my local neighborhood.

Its heroes were my heroes. Its achievements were my achievements.

At my Cardiff state comprehensive, I stood out among Huws and Gareths.

Yet with every feat of Israeli audacity, from the raid on Entebbe to Eurovision victories, I was the toast of the school. My pride in Israel was boosted by my non-Jewish classmates.”

Yes, that was in the era when the new kind of Jew envisaged by the Zionist Movement – a Jew deprived of the “ghetto bend”, a Jew with a country to call his own, and a “normalised” status among the nations  was generally lauded – as a heroic figure, a David versus the Arab Goliath. It was before the Keith Kyles and Michael Adamses and Robert Fisks and John Pilgers and Alan Rusbridgers and Orla Guerins and Jeremy Bowens had stamped their poisonous journalistic imprint upon public opinion, and turned Israel into “The Jew among the nations”, scapegoated, persecuted, reviled.

Cohen’s mention of Wales interested me because, as I mentioned in a previous blog, David Lloyd George, whose Cabinet promulgated the Balfour Declaration and who was a lifelong philosemite, was a Welshman (albeit one born in Manchester) and spoke of his knowledge of the Old Testament and of his sense of identity with Jews as fellow-members of a small but ancient people. Indeed, Wales is about the same size as Israel. Moreover, the translation of the Bible into Welsh during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries is what saved the Welsh language from extinction, and so closely did the Welsh chapel-goers read the Old Testament that the names of many Welsh people – the Welsh took hereditary surnames later than the English, some surnames not being fixed until the end of the nineteenth century – are identical to Jewish names (presenting a hazard for genealogists and other historians).

For example, before he was identified as a Welsh shepherd lad, Aaron Aaron was counted among the Jewish convicts who sailed to Australia with other British transportees on the First Fleet (1788), and when Welsh fashion designer David Emanuel, with his (Jewish) wife Elizabeth, was selected to design Lady Diana Spencer’s wedding dress, he was eagerly claimed as “one of us” by the Jewish press.

Given the sturdy thread of philosemitism that has existed among the Welsh, it’s unpleasant to see the hostility towards and ignorance about Israel displayed by Jill Evans MEP and certain other members of the Welsh nationalist party, Plaid Cymru; these include politician and Baptist minister Rhodri Glyn Thomas, who in cavalier disregard of the reality on board the Mavi Marmara, states on a Plaid Cymru website for Muslims: “It is frightening to think of the horrific ordeal that humanitarian activists – delivering aid to the region – had to endure during Israel’s unprovoked attack, for which the Israeli Government must face sanctions.”

It’s unpleasant, too, to learn of an apparent instance of anti-Israel bigotry in Gwernymynydd, a village outside Mold in Flintshire. The bigotry has targeted the 40-strong Father’s House Congregation, which meets – or rather met until 30 October – on Saturdays (its Sabbath) at the local Village Centre. This photo shows a service in full swing – note the Israeli flag, which symbolises the congregation’s warm support for the Jewish State.

The congregation’s pastor, former National Crime Squad detective Rev Mike Fryer, who used to be pastorof Mold Christian Fellowship, was in Sderot in 2006 when a Hamas missile landed 200 yards from whe school at which he was staying. He studied at Yad Vashem, is a director of Christians For Zion, and on the board of Israel-based Out Of Zion Ministries, and has written a fine essay called “Christian Anti-Semitism Today” (cfoic.net/addpages.jsp?pageID=219) that I mentioned in an earlier blogpost. Here’s a taste of the congregation’s website www.fathershouse.uk.com/resources/israel.htm

The congregation has used the hall for over a decade, but in May was told in writing of a problem the local council had regarding its activities; in August it was given notice to quit, and now, in November, has been evicted. It seems that the May letter informed the congregation that "There has also been great concern expressed about the content of your web site, and the very controversial views it contains. The Village Centre Committee does not wish to be associated with your views." The chairman of the Centre’s management committee says there had been comments from people in the village "about their extreme views but that has nothing to do with our decision to terminate our agreement with them"; he claimed: "They [Fathers House] operate on a Saturday afternoon and early evening which in effect blocks two sessions.//We have a lot of people who want parties on a Saturday.  They have been given the option of a Sunday."

Rev Fryer is quoted as saying:

"There are obviously individuals on the committee who don't like our views.

We have been there for more than 11 years. We pay more money in than any other group using the hall, and we probably do more for the community than any other group.

We normally meet on a Saturday from 2.30pm until 7pm, but we have said we're happy to meet earlier, and have even cancelled some meetings when necessary.

They wanted us to use the hall on a Sunday, knowing very well that our Sabbath is a Saturday. The committee claims it' is because of a rise in requests to use the hall on a Saturday. But I'm a trustee on the committee and I've asked to see the diary but I've been told I'm not allowed."

The congregation, which has obtained temporary premises elsewhere (outside Flintshire, for fear of similar action against it by other councils in that county), remains defiant. On the Christians for Zion website (http://www.christiansforzion.com/ ) it states:

“Fathers House stands firm in their support of Israel and belief that the land of Israel was given to the Jewish people as an everlasting possession in accordance with the scriptures. Fathers House are not willing to compromise in expounding these scriptures and in making their support for the Jewish people and the establishment of Israel widely known through many mediums including the Fathers House website and the Christians for Zion website. The management of the village centre made it very clear in their correspondence in May of this year that the views expressed in the Church Website were enough of an issue for them to evict the congregation from the Council-owned centre. This is without doubt a case of discrimination under section 45 of the Equality Act 2010.”

It is tempting to dismiss this as a parochial dispute, of no consequence outside the village concerned. To do so is a mistake. For if Rev Fryer is correct, and the congregation has indeed been evicted for its pro-Israel views, this is yet another instance of the demonization of Israel and its champions that is happening across Britain; the anti-Israel bigots within and without the Christian Church must not be allowed to win. Clearly, the war against Zionism (indeed, what some analysts have called today’s “War against the Jews”)  is being waged at both the macro and the micro level.

Christian Friends of Israel – and Christian Foes

They’re really pulling out all the stops these days – those perverse Christians who seem to detest the existence of Israel. Last week the Quakers’ headquarters in Manchester hosted both Israel-basher Gideon Levy of Ha’aretz and – like so many Christian places of worship up and down the British Isles – Rod Cox's notorious Israel-demonising exhibition of children’s drawings from Gaza. "Greenbelt", a four-day musical festival at Cheltenham Racecourse that began this past weekend, organised by Christian groups with a pro-Palestinian agenda including Christian Aid and – fresh from their June call to boycott produce from “illegal” West Bank settlements – the Methodists, asks the 12,800 people attending to “confront the stark contrast” between the festival and the “day-to-day life” of Gazans.

Replacement theology and Successionism is undermining Israel, and many Christians have been seduced by Naim Ateek, founder of the Palestinian Christian organisation Sabeel, who denies that the “Old Testament” justifies Zionism and has made conflicting statements regarding Israel’s right to exist. Churches have produced one-sided reports about the situation in the Middle East that depict Hamas as a charitable organisation, completely overlooking its terrorist credentials and its antisemitic genocidal Charter. There’s even a tendency in some quarters to twist reality for political purposes and depict Jesus as a Palestinian rather than as a Judean. In London both the Bloomsbury Baptist Church and St James’s Church, Piccadilly, hold carol services in conjunction with the Palestine Solidarity Campaign with the words to well-known carols altered to demonise Israel.


And so on.

Yesterday, I blogged about how certain Welsh politicians are aiding and abetting with gusto the Palestine Solidarity Campaign branch in Wales, and although I hope to blog in the future about Christian philosemitism and Christian pro-Zionism generally, today I’ll remain within the Principality (yes, there are still some of us who call Wales by that correct term, even if the BBC long ago instructed its journalists to avoid the term for fear of offending anti-monarchists!) since the behaviour of leading clergymen in the Church in Wales (the Welsh Anglicans ) is really quite outrageously biased against Israel.

David Lloyd George, that famous Manchester-born Welshman who presided over the Cabinet that promulgated the Balfour Declaration in 1917, once noted that "I was brought up in a school where I was taught far more about the history of the Jews than about the history of my own land. I could tell you all about the kings of Israel. But I doubt whether I could have named half a dozen of the kings of England and not more of the kings of Wales .... On five days a week in the day school, and ... in our Sunday schools, we were thoroughly versed in the history of the Hebrews."

Like other members of his Cabinet, Lloyd George was a philosemite. Although he joked that "Acetone converted me to Zionism" (a reference to Chaim Weizmann’s discovery of that substance, which so crucially aided the British war effort), Lloyd George’s receptivity to the idea of a restored Jewish Homeland in Eretz Israel was embedded in his religious upbringing. Of the Jews, he said:

"You belong to a very great race which has made the deepest impression on the destinies of humanity .... Your poets, kings and warriors are better known to the children and adults of Wales than are the names of our own heroes!... You may say you have been oppressed and persecuted – that has been your power! You have been hammered into very fine steel, and that is why you can never be broken."

To Lloyd George, the Balfour Declaration was ‘"a charter of of equality for the Jews.... They belong to a ... race that has endured persecution which for the variety of torture – physical, material, and mental, inflicted on its victims, for the virulence and malignity with which it has been sustained, for the length of time it has lasted, and, more than all, for the fortitude and patience with which it has been suffered, is without parallel in the history of any other people. Is it too much to ask that amongst them whose sufferings are the worst shall be able to find refuge in the land of their fathers made holy by the splendour of their genius, the loftiness of their thoughts, by the consecration of their loves, and by the inspirations of their messages to mankind?"

Another Welsh philosemite, the Calvinistic Methodist minister Rev. John Mills, whose book The British Jews (1862) remains an invaluable historical resource, was among the small group of Jews and non-Jews who in 1852 founded the Association for Promoting Jewish Settlement in Palestine. They aimed at establishing a self-administering Jewish colony between those sacred cities, Safed and Tiberias, with livestock and equipment funded by public subscription. In seeking such support, they remarked that "whilst Palestine has such significance in the eyes of the Christians, with how much greater interest must it be regarded by the Jew? ... towards it he yet gravitates as to his natural centre." And at a meeting of Welsh ex-pats held in London in 1854, Mills declared: "To speak my whole heart, I believe Palestine belongs to the Jews. The Almighty promised it to Abraham of old ... and have it they shall."

Fast forward to our own day, and although I’m sure that Wales still has pro-Zionists a-plenty, some very disturbing developments are gathering pace in that section of the Anglican Communion known as the Church in Wales.

A claim that “the Jews are cowards” made on the Church in Wales’s Jubilee Fund website in 2002 remained there for a year despite innumerable objections, including a complaint from Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams, himself a Welshman, about the “deplorable” and “inflammatory language about Jews”. In brazen contrast, complaints regarding the publication of an “Irish joke” in a parish magazine was followed by an official apology from the vicar of the parish concerned. And when the Church in Wales’s Welsh-language magazine carried a cartoon offensive to Muslims, the Archbishop of Wales, Barry Morgan, gathered up all available copies himself and went on television to apologise to Muslims. But when the same magazine printed a questionable spoof concerning Jews no such action was forthcoming.

Despite the suffering that terrorist Arafat inflicted on Israelis, Archbishop Morgan declared that he’d remember the dead leader for his perseverance and resolve. For the Church in Wales, Israel’s use of force to defend its citizens is “revenge violence” and excuses are made for Palestinian attacks on Israelis. When, during Operation Cast Lead, a mobile dental health clinic paid for by the Church in Wales and supporters including the Palestine Solidarity Campaign was destroyed, Morgan took it for granted that the IDF was deliberately inhumane: "We find it incomprehensible and tragic that any armed forces anywhere in the world would want to destroy such a building, let alone the State of Israel with all its historic memories of oppression and genocide.... It does raise questions about the credibility of Israel’s values and purposes."

Then there was the Christmas message that year from Dominic Walker, Bishop of Monmouth: "God so loved the world that he sent Jesus to be born in Palestine”. Indeed, in a series of short films made in Wales and the Holy Land in 2009 by St David’s Diocese for use in a teaching course, the word “Israel” appears only once, Arabs – not Jews – are prominently featured, and major Biblical figures, including prophets and disciples, are not identified as Jews.

This month, Canon Robin Morrison, a member of the Church in Wales’s Strategic International Affairs Group, inspired, it seems, by Prime Minister David Cameron’s description of Gaza as a “prison camp”, came out all guns – or rather computer keys – blazing, with a long denunciation of Israel (Western Mail, 4 August 2010).

“Any critical voice from the churches is condemned as anti-Semitic,” he thundered, “ and this ploy has dangerous implications for the Jewish community throughout the world. It equates all Jews with present Israeli policy and forgets that Jews aren’t the only people with a Semitic background.” Deftly done – this “the Arabs are Semites too” business; we hear it from foes of Israel, who should know – especially when they are well-educated senior clergymen – that the term antisemitism (the hyphen is frowned upon these days) was coined by a German Jew-hater specifically in relation to Jews, and to Jews alone. (Perhaps we should all prefer the term judeophobia, so that the canon and his ilk cannot resort to that particular “ploy”.)  I suppose this is what over-reliance on Sabeel's narrative does to these clergy.

He concedes that “Security, of course, is a legitimate matter for Israel and is indivisible in the wider region” but then descends into claptrap: “But, ironically, by isolating their security needs from other countries’, they decrease their chances of long-term stability and security and appear arrogantly insensitive to other people’s needs.”

And then comes the malevolent, politically charged crux of his message:

'The blockade of Gaza, which continues, despite recent adjustments, is still defended as necessary for Israel’s security. But the argument was used to prevent the import of cement to rebuild the very buildings Israeli tanks destroyed in their last massive invasion of Gaza! If Israel continues to use this argument, there is a serious risk of moral hypocrisy. If Israel asserts its rights to prevent arms getting to Gaza, then the international community and the Palestinians should assert their rights to blockade Israel to prevent American arms arriving there. It is these weapons that not only threatened and killed thousands in Gaza and the Southern Lebanon but destroyed crucial infrastructure. Israel always asks international commentators to be even-handed. The just and fair logic of this implies we should now call for an international blockade of arms into Israel or those manufactured there.

This would include any nuclear weapons Israel has and we should call on the international WMD inspectors to now visit Israel. We should ask for even-handedness and justice. If the West objects to Iran’s development of nuclear weapons capability, they must equally object to Israel’s. Being a “democratic” country, of course, Israel should welcome such inspectors and such discussion.'

(They just don’t get it, do they – or perhaps they do – that Israel is under existential threat, that Israel has a right and an obligation to defend itself?)

And then there’s this, with a snide reference to the Shoah for added effect – is this what the canon preaches from the pulpit, one wonders – this mean-spirited message?

‘There is something extraordinary about this level of moral hypocrisy. Given all that Jewish people have experienced through the Holocaust, oppression and injustice, it is hard to understand how the State of Israel has become so insensitive. More, too many statements by recent prime ministers of Israel, and their ambassadors, have included racist language about Israel as “founded for the Jews” in an exclusive way. This would be unacceptable in other democratic countries and goes against the values of multiculturalism and diversity, regardless of religious background....In any other situation, this would be named as “racism”. Israel knows how difficult it is for us to use such a word, because they were victims of Nazi racial ideology.

Yet the facts are the facts. Israel claims to be and is supported by America as being the only democratic country in the region, but democratic countries do not normally build walls, occupy other people’s territory and do not lock up people in barbed wire barriers, checkpoints and blockades. Where they do, there is usually international condemnation.

....The last invasion of Lebanon, where thousands were killed and displaced, and the airport and major infrastructure destroyed, was Israel’s reaction to the kidnapping of a few of its soldiers. It was Israel that created the conditions for Hamas to appear, and yet Israel apparently is blind to the hostility it creates by its “disproportionate” actions, creating enemies not allies in the region. British political leadership has, in recent years, refused to utter the word “disproportionate”. ...Israel is a secular state with many different shades of Judaism within it. If secular Zionism still claims a right to the land, over the Palestinians, then it should take the morality in its history more seriously. The possession of the land “flowing with milk and honey”, achieved through the conquest and destruction of other peoples, came from a sense of promise, calling and responsibility combined. It is that responsibility “to be a light to lighten the nations” which the actions of modern Israel has so discredited.’

At several locations online there’s an impressive essay on Christian antisemitism written in 2009 by Mike Fryer, a sterling pro-Israel clergyman from Mold, Flintshire, and I’d like to quote you a few paragraphs from it (but do read it all), as they capture so well what is transpiring:

‘Many in Christendom today are using charity and good works to re-enforce in the minds of many Muslim fundamentalists that Islam has the right and even a duty to take land from the Jewish people and establish a homeland for themselves. They are referring to land, which the Jewish people by right, by international law and by religion are entitled to possess.

“Christian” organizations such as Sabeel and Christian Aid speak openly in favor of a Palestinian homeland and use terms such as an “oppressive Israel regime” and “Israeli Occupation”; Church denominations such as the Church in Wales, the Anglican Communion, Methodists and Presbyterians have all spoken of divestment of Israel and support the Palestinian cause to create another state within the confines of the land of Israel. These and many other church organizations, such as the Vineyard, are encouraging governments to negotiate with terrorists ... [and] have eagerly moved away from the term antisemitism and now use the term anti-Zionism. What is the difference? By using the former you can be called a racist and prosecuted but the term anti-Zionism is not perceived in the same way and although it means the same it is, in this current political climate, “acceptable”.'

He continues:

‘In the town in which I live an anti-Israel play was performed at our local theatre. I led some other Christians for Zion supporters as we stood at the door to the theater and gave out leaflets, not criticizing anyone but stating facts. Many local church leaders and Christian groups attended the play and were obviously opposed to our stance. We found it difficult that many who teach from their pulpits that we are always to seek truth actually ignored the truths in our message….

Three years ago I attended a meeting at which a Church in Wales canon was speaking about the situation in Israel. There were a number of clergy present, none of whom knew me. I listened to lie after lie encouraging the audience to sympathize with Islam and the Palestinian people, and to see Israel as an aggressive regime, hell bent on persecuting the Palestinian people. At the end of the presentation there was a time for questions. At the conclusion of a stream of pro-Palestinian questions, I asked some pertinent questions which showed that the speaker was aware that he was not telling the truth about the actual matters he was referring to. The meeting was immediately stopped and worried clergy, thinking I was a journalist surrounded me in an effort to find out what the purpose of my attendance was.’

Luckily, there are those engaged in a fightback, including that splendid organisation, Anglican Friends of Israel, which has issued a ringing denunciation of Canon Morrison’s shameful outburst and which itemised the church’s shenanigans in a report dated 18 January this year, entitled “A Purged Jesus in the Church in Wales?” “The Scriptures themselves say that 'Salvation comes from the Jews', the report concluded, “and senior figures in the Church of Wales might reflect on whether they are in danger of uprooting Jesus from the Jewish soil which bore Him.” “We cannot afford to stand by in our churches and allow Israel to be ignored, abused or opposed by a twisted or misinterpreted theology,” says the Rev. Fryer. “We cannot stand by whilst ministers in Christian churches or Christian organisations encourage and fund a concerted effort to destroy Israel and those who support her.”

Welsh Dragons Show Their Colours

In 2009, in a small and quaint Welsh seaside resort where Chasidic families from London and Manchester spend a week or two each August, an unidentified teenage yob gives a Nazi salute to an unmistakably Jewish visitor sporting black hat, beard and tzit-tzit. On the lookout for publicity as always, local pro-Palestinian activists immediately write to the local newspaper deploring the incident but (perfectly gratuitously, for the yob had said not one word about Israel) linking it for the sake of their own propaganda purposes to Israel’s actions in Gaza. Early in 2010 the town council in the same locality decides, on the grounds of cost – though some dunderheaded councillors also cite “irrelevance” – to reject a proposal that the town host a travelling Anne Frank Exhibition.

A local shopkeeper, the daughter of Holocaust survivors, is upset with the council’s decision, especially the suggestion that the exhibition has no relevance to townsfolk, and writes to the local paper to say so. Again, pro-Palestinian activists sense an opportunity to spew out anti-Israel propaganda in the paper’s ever-receptive letters columns – and they do. And as usual, letters from pro-Israel correspondents in refutation are ignored by a newspaper whose payroll includes a columnist who not so long ago took it upon himself to launch a spiteful campaign to have the local university divest from Israel.


In that town, according to Yvetta (hat tip: JC.Com Blogs):

‘Quite regularly members of the local Peace Network – perhaps a baker’s dozen of ‘em – gather in the main street and "sing for peace"; basically, they also double as the local Palestine Solidarity Campaign, and so “Free Palestine” and “End the Siege on Gaza” placards always accompany their performances. I tackled them once, during Cast Lead, and was told by a very angry chap with a petition that Israel should never have been created. Now I just give them a wide berth – as do most passers-by.’

This year, at the height of the tourist season, the county council whose catchment area includes the same town enthusiastically provided a prominent town centre venue for Rod Cox’s propagandistic exhibition of children’s drawings from Gaza, held under the auspices of the Aberystwyth Palestine Solidarity Campaign. Yvetta takes up the story:

‘There was an assortment of leaflets on hand demonising Israel and I noticed that one of the captions to the exhibit implied that Jesus was a Palestinian rather than a Jew. I saw a former mayor of the town taking in chairs for the talk by Cox (that came towards the end of the exhibit's stay in town) which he delivered twice. I went along to the first one. A press photographer was snapping the exhibits. Our local Lib Dem MP, Mark Williams, was on hand to express his staunch support for “Palestine Solidarity” and his delight at the exhibition – “a brilliant case for ending injustice in Palestine” - and pledged: “Anything I can do to raise these issues in Parliament, I will do my utmost”. The local Plaid Cymru member in the Welsh Assembly, Elin Jones, spoke similarly, noting that, although international issues are not normally raised in that chamber, an exception was made for Palestine. (Well, how about that!!!) With the enthusiastic help of those two politicians, a plan is afoot to twin schools in Gaza with schools in Wales.’

This school twinning project will almost certainly entail the “Exploring Palestine through Citizenship” online resource issued under the joint aegis of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and the Council for Arab-British Understanding (CAABU). It’s intended for secondary school pupils, and is, from a pro-Israeli perspective, sheer poison, inviting children to role-play the parts of Palestinians and so on, with absolutely no countervailing viewpoint.

Needless to say, the twinning project is an iniquitous weapon for delegitimising Israel, and is also under way in other parts of the United Kingdom. But its apotheosis seems to have been reached in Wales – ironically a country about the same size as Israel – owing to the enthusiastic backing of politicians Williams and Jones, and goodness knows how many other “useful idiots” in influential places. That those “useful idiots” include a number of Christian clergy in Wales I don’t doubt, and I’ll be blogging about the disturbing developments within the Church in Wales very shortly.