"Jewish Privilege is ..."

In response to the raw antisemitism on the despicable thread #Jewish Privilege that has been trending on Twitter, a sample of ripostes, including that of Kay Wilson, the British Jew who almost lost her life when attacked by Palestinian Arab terrorists near Beit Shemesh ten years ago.

Also in response, here's a fella with a rather uncomfortable 15 minute lecture for American Jews.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CCq415jWxI

"The Greatest Story Never Told"

For those who haven't read her book, here's a video by the highly articulate Lyn Julius, co-founder of Harif, on Jews in the Arab Lands, their contributions and persecution.

To quote the uploader,  J-TV:

'When the world speaks of Middle Eastern refugees, it means Palestinian Arab refugees. The truth is that there were more Jews displaced from Arab countries since 1948 than Palestinians from Israel (856,000, as against 711,000, according to UN figures). Some people call the Jewish Exodus The Greatest Story never told. Meet Lyn Julius, author of "Uprooted: How 3,000 years of Jewish civilisation in the Arab world vanished overnight".'

Milady's Cobber Down Under Pontificates on Antisemitism

Peter Garcia-Webb has apparently been a friend of Baroness Tonge since their respective medical training at Guy's Hospital.

Now living in Perth, Western Australia, the distinguished research scientist, London-born of Jewish parentage, is a derider of Israel, posting this on Facebook, for example, at the time of Bibi's highly successful visit to Australia early last year, when the recently deposed Malcolm Turnbull was prime minister:

 Nor does he like President Trump's Middle East policy.  For instance:

Or the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA)'s working definition of antisemitism:

In fact, he dislikes the latter so much that he's now written a long screed of his own about the definition of antisemitism:

Which is very much liked by Baroness Tonge:

As I showed here, the talented Garcia-Webb's forays into "social fiction" make no secret of his antipathy to Zionism.

But that aside, some of his tweets have been eyebrow-raising:

Not as grossly startling, granted, as these social media sentiments (brought to public attention by Aussie Dave in his post here), by one of Tonge's Facebook friends, anti-Israel activist and "human rights"lawyer Simone O'Broin (aka Simone Burns).  The same woman whose drunken racist and sexist abuse of Air India cabin staff has gone viral on the internet (interesting take by David Collier here):

As has been widely observed, O'Broin's rant provides a stark reminder of the slime that lurks within the anti-Israel movement:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9XOioAAr7A

Here's the ghastly Pamela Hardiment aka Pam Arnold, for instance:

I wonder how Milady and her cobber Down Under would define that!

Stinkers From the Swamp: Stephen Sizer's "Sad Day"

"A sad day."  

That's the so-called Peacemaker Trust's CEO Stephen Sizer's reaction to the loathsome life peer Jenny Tonge's news of the parting of the ways between her and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign over her reprehensible assertion regarding last week's synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh.

David Collier observes in his latest analytical post ("In the antisemitic swamp with Jenny Tonge")  here,

"As someone who spends time researching antisemitism within anti-Israel activism, I [Collier] frequently come across Jenny Tonge’s activity online. What I have known for a long time, is that many of the supporters she regularly interacts with are hard-core antisemites. I pointed this out in my report on Palestine Live, and even to this day, Tonge has remained a member of the group....

 63% of posters were found to have shared antisemitic material. When we include those who are responsible for putting antisemitism onto the streets, or helping to spread it, then we reach 72%. These are her Facebook friends. Even for me, with years of research behind me, these concentration levels are as high, if not higher than I have experienced before. This on the social media account of a member of the House of Lords.

These levels reinforce the underlying issue with antisemitism in anti-Israel activity. Whether Jenny Tonge is an antisemite herself is an irrelevance. What is certain is that she is surrounded by it. Antisemites are attracted to her presence and form the main basis of her visible support.

How can Jenny Tonge not be aware, after all this time, that so many of these people swarming around her social media pages have deep issues with Jewish people? Far too many of these posters are attracted to Holocaust Denial, and a support for ideologies of the hard-right. In the images above we have support for David Duke, Trevor Labonte, Gilad Atzmon and there is even a link to the white nationalist, neo-Nazi website Renegade Tribune. How many Holocaust deniers, how many people sharing white supremacist material, do we need on ONE THREAD, before we can call them ‘far-right racists’? More to the point, how can Jenny Tonge swim in this antisemitic swamp every day and not realise that there is a problem she needs to address?

Perhaps the time has come for other members of the House of Lords to force her hand."

Among the individuals Collier mentions in his post are our old mate the ex-vicar of Virginia Water, and, at length, the latter's Facebook chum Tony Gratrex (a founder of Reading PSC and an inveterate 9/11 truther).

As I've remarked many times, Sizer really needs to defriend Gratrex and other incorrigibles on his social media posts, if he is in earnest about his own denials of antisemitism. 

But he carries on regardless.  The pseudonymous Christian Israel-hater Harriet S. Place, who happens to be featured in the above example of Gratrex's posts posted by Collier (there are others) is a repeat offender in the conspiracy stakes.  Witness these posts, for instance.

(The self-inflicted scars incurred by that infamous 9/11 Facebook post of yours, eh, vicar?)

.
 The reference immediately below is to blogger and Anglican vicar's husband Robert Cohen,

 Stinkers from the swamp, indeed.

On the Dark Side of the Moon: Sizer in Oklahoma

This year, the Christ at the Checkpoint (CATC) Conference, a bi-annual Israel-bashing event dedicated to undermining Christian Zionism and founded by Palestinian activists in Bethlehem eight years ago, is being held in the United States for the very first time.

As reported inter alia here, Luke Moon, deputy director of the Philos Project, believes that while CATC will in all likelihood not "turn a significant number of evangelicals against Israel, he believes their attack on Christian Zionism is anti-Semitism in disguise" and has expressed surprise at finding that Stephen Sizer, CEO of the so-called Peacemaker Trust (which appears to be more obsessively concerned with attacking Israel than ever before) is a speaker: 

A naive ally -er- alibi (geddit?)  Yep, there's always one ...

"I kept asking myself, are the organizers so foolish to cast such a negative shadow over the conference. It became clear that Sizer's work in fighting Christian Zionism was more important than his anti-Semitism.

This shows me two things about CATC. First, it shows that they are not as concerned about anti-Semitism as they claim. Second, they fail to recognize how inviting Sizer undermines their efforts to attract Christians to their cause. 

Anti-Zionism seeks to delegitimize the claims of the Jewish people to the land of Israel. It is the connection to that land, the shared memory and hope that one day they would be restored to their land, Zion, that preserved the Jews as a particular people among the nations they lived. Anti-Zionism seeks to strip that away.

I believe there is sufficient evidence to show that attacking Christian Zionism not only harms Jewish-Christian relations, it leads to an environment where it's not just the relations that are harmed, it's the Jews themselves."

Friends on ...

Meanwhile, Sizer (who is apparently hoping to visit Atlanta and Seattle next year) is miffed that the first  review of the Kindle edition of his (Sizer's) notorious book Zion's Christian Soldiers is a critical one, albeit measured, by James Mendelsohn, and is requesting his social media faithful to post their own to neutralise it.

Opines Mendelsohn:

'[T]he book is seriously marred by the author's very obvious anti-Israel agenda.

Facebook react ...

A clear example of this is his statement on pp. 69-70: "The 'dividing wall of hostility', typified by the barrier that separated Jews and Gentiles in the temple, has been broken down by Jesus Christ. It is ironic, if tragic, that despite his willingness to comply with all the petty temple regulations concerning ritual purity, Paul would eventually be arrested for allegedly bringing Greeks into the temple and defiling God's house (Acts 21:28-29).

Today, their successors in the government of Israel are seeking to erect a much higher and longer 'separation barrier' to preserve their racial identity and exclusive claim to the land of Palestine." The phrase, "Today, their successors..." seems to imply that Jews, or at least Jewish leaders, are incorrigibly racist. Since there are both Jews and Arabs both to the East and to the West of Israel's security barrier, Sizer's claim is demonstrably false. Rather, the security fence was built to stop Israelis being killed, and has been demonstrably successful: 431 Israelis were killed in 137 suicide bombings between September 2000 and the completion of the northern and most of the Jerusalem sections of the wall, 100 in March 2000 alone.

and react ...

 After the completion of the wall in the north, there was not a single terrorist attack across that section. By December 2004, the number of suicide attacks launched from the West Bank had fallen by 84% in less than two years. (Figures from Sir Martin Gilbert's updated Israel, A History, p. 631.) Since Sizer neither mourns these Israeli dead nor condemns (or even acknowledges) their killers, and instead denounces the structure designed to protect Israelis as a symbol of racist imperialism, it is hard not to conclude that he has no objection to Israelis being killed. (This is not to deny that the wall undoubtedly causes serious hardship and suffering to the Palestinians; nor that the wall cuts into land beyond the Green Line, which could otherwise have been allocated to a future Palestinian state.)

... ever more ...

Sadly, this is not an isolated instance in Sizer's book. At page 8, the Union of Jewish Students (i.e. your friendly local J-Soc) is cast as an opponent of intellectual freedom. On page 10, Sizer asks, "Why is Israel allowed to retain nuclear weapons, while Iran is threatened with a pre-emptive attack for aspiring to obtain nuclear technology?", yet inexcusably fails to mention that Iran's president has denied the first Holocaust and has threatened to perpetrate a second. At footnote 12 on page 6, Sizer draws on the conspiracy theories of Mearsheimer and Walt. In a footnote on page 15, he refers approvingly to the flawed and highly partisan works of Jimmy Carter and Ilan Pappe, and also to Uri Davis, a PLO observer member who helped to promote the antisemitic play "Perdition" in the 1980s, which alleged that Zionist leaders collaborated with the Nazis in perpetrating the Holocaust.

despicably (click here for the antisemitic article*)

Sadly, this in keeping with an author who demonises supporters of Israel as "people in the shadows" and for whom Uri Davis, neo-Nazi favourite Israel Shahak and Holocaust-denier-defender and intellectual crook Noam Chomsky are "leading Jewish academics". For all that Sizer says that "Anti-Semitism must be repudiated unequivocally" (p. 15), some of his terminology and sources seem to point in the other direction. It is surely not a coincidence that, in 2015, Stephen Sizer was censured by Andrew Watson, the Bishop of Guil[d]ford, for posting "clearly anti-Semitic material" on social media.

Saddest of all, though, is the fact that, Zion's Christian Soldiers? has, like Sizer's previous book, been published by Inter-Varsity Press, a reputable Christian publishing house, and has been endorsed by various prominent Christian leaders, including Dick Lucas and Rico Tice. One might not expect reviewers to check every source and factual assertion (though we might hope that a responsible publisher would), but frankly this is of little comfort to those of us who are Jewish, who recognise antisemitism when we see it, and who are all too aware of what antisemitism has led to through the centuries....'

*When will Sizer clear out that Augean stable?!

Jennifer's Jesting? "Turnbull Must Urgently Clarify Whether or Not He is Entitled to Israeli Citizenship"

The Australian "Dual Citizenship" debacle, which has seen several federal policians departing their parliamentary seats because they are dual citizens of Australia and another country grew ugly during the past week or so with suggestions, lauded by antisemites, that energy minister Josh Frydenberg, may be ineligible to sit in parliament because his mother was born (1943) in Hungary, a claim roundly denounced by prime minister Malcolm Turnbull.

Now, antisemites and anti-"Zionists" are jubilant over the issue of whether Mr Turnbull himself is ineligible to sit in Parliament owing to the Israeli Law of Return!

"Turnbull must urgently clarify whether or not he is entitled to Israeli citizenship

The S44 citizenship saga has thrown up possible queries concerning the citizenship status of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

The first is this interview with the Times of Israel in September 2015, recorded when Turnbull ousted former Prime Minister Tony Abbott and took over the top job:

My mother always used to say that her mother’s family was Jewish, he (Turnbull) told the Australian Jewish News two years ago. Judaism is passed from generation to generation on the mother’s side, so if his mother was in fact Jewish, so is Turnbull.

The second is a piece from the Australian Jewish News, August 2013, headlined “Menachem Mandel Turnbull?” in which the same statement is made by Turnbull about his mother, Coral Lansbury.

If Turnbull is Jewish, he is, as is every Jew in the world with the exception of criminals and terrorists, entitled to Israeli citizenship under the 1950 Law of Return.

How does this bring into question Turnbull’s legitimacy as an MP?

Section 44(i) of Australia’s Constitution disqualifies someone from office if that person:

…is under any acknowledgment of allegiance, obedience, or adherence to a foreign power, or is a subject or a citizen or entitled to the rights or privileges of a subject or a citizen of a foreign power… (emphasis mine)

We know from recent events that:

The High Court’s reading of section 44 is strict and unsurprising. It means that a dual national is barred from Parliament even where they were born in Australia, are ignorant of their other citizenship and have never attempted to use the rights or privileges of another country. A person can even be disqualified where they become a dual national later in life due to legal changes in another country.

Obviously his citizenship status and S44 were far from Turnbull’s mind in 2013 and 2015, when the interviews were recorded. Yet he was, at the beginning of his political career, like any other aspiring MP whose background carries the possibility of dual citizenship or entitlement to that citizenship, required to establish his status before standing for parliament. His failure to do this places his legitimacy as an MP and Prime Minister in doubt.

For the sake of the country’s stability, Turnbull must immediately address these issues, and rapidly and transparently convey his citizenship status to the Australian people. It is unthinkable that we should continue with a Prime Minister who is ineligible to sit in our parliament.

Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg is in the same situation as Turnbull. Frydenberg’s mother is Jewish, and he is also entitled to Israeli citizenship under the Law of Return."

The originally appeared here: the comments below the line there tell their own story.

Its author, Jennifer Wilson, is thus described:

"Jennifer, who has a PhD, has worked as an academic and a scholar, but now works at little of both her careers. She has published short stories in several anthologies, academic papers and book chapters, frequently on the topic of human rights. Her interests and writing are wide ranging, including cultural analysis. Jennifer has written for On Line Opinion, Suite 101 and ABC’s Drum Unleashed. Jennifer is well-known for her long-running blog No Place for Sheep: an eclectic blog that covers politics, society, satire, fiction and fun stuff."

So I'm assuming that it's a clumsy satire on her part, misrepresented by the Jew- and Israel-haters who have shared it on Facebook.

Mr Turnbull is certainly a firm friend of Israel, and as I've written before, he's hinted more that once that he is of Jewish descent on his mother's side. 

To quote the Australian Jewish News in 2013:

'....“My mother always used to say that her mother’s family was Jewish,” the member for Wentworth said....
Asked if his mother’s revelation has shaped his views he said: “Yes, maybe.”
 “I grew up in the Eastern Suburbs and as we all observe there were a lot of Jews in the Eastern Suburbs and I have always been very comfortable.
“There is no doubt that the strong traditions of family and the whole heimishe atmosphere of the Jewish community, which I’m sure some people don’t like, for me – as someone who is a good friend, but not part of it – I find very admirable.”
Reflecting on his mother, he noted, “She had a lot of Jewish friends in Sydney and a lot of Jewish friends in Philadelphia, where she was living when she died.”....'

 But as commenter Max stated on this post of mine, he (Max) failed to find a definitive answer:

'Turnbull's being pretty well claimed as of Jewish halachic descent by half the Jewish press in the world! If he wants to be Jewish - great - who are we to keep him out? As far as I can make out his mother Coral's mother was May Morle whose own mother was Alice Harriet Hawes, born GB 1848, her mother being Sarah somebody - there the trail runs cold.'

And as far as "dual citizenship" is concerned it wouldn't matter if he had! Being eligible to emigrate to Israel under the Law of Return does not an Israeli citizen make.

Snowballs & A Missive from British Columbia

It's swelteringly hot in Oz this week, which is perhaps why my thoughts have turned longingly to snow.

Alas, this is what I came across, written by Dan Snow.

The Duke of Westminster's son-in-law, the well-connected Dan comes from a broadcasting family: he's pompous Israel-bashing Channel 4 newspeader John Snow's nephew and BBC broadcaster Peter Snow's son.  He himself presents television documentaries on historical topics.

Here's a recent photo of Dan with Israel-demoniser Professor Avi Shlaim, practically every British Israel-bashing event's de rigueur guest.  

Judging from the chummy smiles, it's perhaps not so very surprising seems that Mr Snow, who calls himself "The History Guy," has been falling for and disseminating faux propaganda (in polite parlance "balls") on Twitter regarding a certain Declaration:

He soon found himself challenged.  When asked whether he included Palestinian Jews in the above, he responded "Absolutely".

The questioner then observed: "Glad you clarified that, Dan because dig into the soil of Israel and you find eons of Jewish history." 

To which Snow replied: "You bet. Texan soil has eons of Spanish history too but the British empire would have been behaving oddly giving it to Spain..."

Among the subsequent criticisms of Snow came this, from an international relations specialist at a UK university: 'I was more intrigued by "owned by the Ottomans" as if that's somehow a more legitimate form of imperialism than a League of Nations mandate.'

Quite so.

Meanwhile, from a Canadian, an old mate of ours has received, none too happily, some home truths:

What irony!

I mean, has there ever been a time when any of Sizer's followers has intervened to suggest a red card for, let alone police action against, the raw antisemitic commenters and "Israel did 9/11" conspiracy theorists who are among the ex-vicar's Facebook friends?

Not that I've noticed.

A Fashion Icon in Black & White

What she's wearing,  Baroness [Jenny] Tonge:

And the Aussie Sizer, Father Dave Smith:

Here's the lowdown on this staple of many an Israel-demoniser's wardrobe:

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SUmXUcYwsE

And on this, the centenary of the Balfour Declaration,  a fascinating lecture by the late Sir Martin Gilbert (the Irene and Hyman Kreitman Annual Memorial Lecture on May 30, 2011 during the 41st Annual Board of Governors Meeting at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev) entitled Sowing the Seeds of Jewish Statehood: Britain and Palestine, 1909-1922

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kub6d-ik6w

Be warned: it's about 52 minutes long.  Perhaps best listened to while pottering about.
Hat tip: JH

Great talk by historian Stephen Schama: "Israel's life is Hitler's failure"

Meanwhile, in retaliation for the creation of Israel and its refusal to die,  just three current social media displays of pique and antisemitism out of a vast number, the first by this funny chap:

"An Absurd Political Marriage Enabled Only by a Mutual Hatred of Jews"

See exclusive photos at Breitbart by clicking here

".... Hezbollah T-Shirts, Nasrallah T-Shirts, Khomeini T-Shirts. These people marched proudly through the streets of London. Someone had a placard that read ‘ We are all Hezbollah’. ... Support for radical Islamic extremists. Maybe 350 people in total, maybe slightly more. The demographic was clearly one sided. Over 80% of them looked Middle Eastern themselves. Arabic was the language most spoken.
 
.... The drum beat ever present. The mob’s conductor leading the way with the usual chants. Right through Oxford Circus, Regent Street, Bond Street, the heart of London’s main shopping district. Hezbollah flags were waving all the way. I saw a boy, maybe 13 or 14, holding the terrorist flag.....
 

Image: SussexFriendsofIsrael

Such extremism. Such hatred. There will be no peace, there will be no progress, until this venom is extracted from the conflict. The irony that on this day in North London, left-wing Zionists had gathered at a Haaretz conference to discuss the issue of peace was not lost on me. With all the will in the world, theirs is a bubble that at the moment, simply does not exist.

You cannot negotiate with this. Nor will peace move forward whilst this mob is allowed to spread its poison. This is blind hatred. Self- chosen ignorance, bias, and yes, not a little antisemitism. Those few in the crowd that were not Islamic radicals fell into two distinct groups. Those on the very far left, and those on the very far right. An absurd political marriage enabled only by a mutual hatred of Jews...."

 The words are the admirable David Collier's, and are taken from his firsthand account of Friday's Al Quds march in London (click here for that must-read post with several instructive photos).

And see the many photos as well as videos on Sussex Friends of Israel's Facebook page here. (Happily, this year the Israel-haters did not have Al Quds Day all to themselves: pro-Israel forces featured a counter-rally, at which UNWatch's Hillel Neuer and Hendon MP Matthew Offord spoke.)

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IAgNlt8h78)

Regarding the Hezbollah flags, be sure to  see Edgar Davidson's totally-nails-it graphic here

Meanwhile, in Berlin, this modern form of the Old Hatred where Jackboots went before:

Also in Berlin, these pro-Israel protesters against the haters' march:

And, half a world away, the Old Hatred's manifestation close to Australia's shores:

"They're Finding It Antisemitic," London policewoman warns anti-Israel chanters (video)

In London, a bunch of usual suspects, addressed by the familiar Sandra, demonstrate at the weekend outside the venue at which the Jerusalem Quartet is playing.

At the beginning of the video we see an elderly gentleman angrily snatch the Palestinian flag just as  the demonstrators are about to raise it on their flagpole.

Their subsequent screams of "From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free," that vile war cry meaning that the Jewish State must be eradicated, and thus denying Jewish rights to self-determination in the Jewish homeland, proves too much for some Jewish concert-goers, who complain to a policewoman that the phrase, with its inherent concept, is antisemitic.

The policewoman warns the little gaggle of usual suspects that the complainants could report their chanting as "a hate crime," should they care to do so.

(Video by BDS activist Alex Seymour)

Nous Sommes Tous Parisiens

 Well, most of us are.

In the wake of Friday night's unspeakable atrocities in Paris, there have been suggestions that the Balaclan theatre has been attacked owing to its Jewish ownership; moreover, the American band Eagles of Death Metal had performed in Israel this summer in defiance of the BDSers: read more here

And if your French is up to it:

 Rough translation from the video:

"It's clear now, this is a message to the owners of the Bataclan. Take responsibility for your acts. This is a message to the organisers of Migdal, this pro-Israel and racist and Islamophobic organisation, that spends its time insulting the Palestinians, the Arabs and the Muslims. You are going to pay for the consequences of your acts. You're doing something very serious. For all those who are worried about the consequences of this provocation. It's understood that it causes anger in the suburbs. We have come to send you a little message. Next time we're not coming to talk."

 Shocking video of attacks on Bataclan and people fleeing here, but it might take time to load.

Meanwhile, from the estimable Mudar Zahran, the London-based pro-Israel leader of the Jordanian opposition:

By contrast, predictable gobbledygook from Israel-haters, such as these.  Most if not all of them are lefties.

Free Gaza co-founder Mary Hughes-Thompson, in one of her numerous tweets oozing bile:

 Sydney feminist Pip Hinman:

And Irish anti-Israel activist Sean Clinton and friend:

At least Gorgeous George, seasoned old politico that he is, knows there's a time and a place for everything:

(But see my next post!)

Great article here:

 (Hat tip: Ian G.)

Another here:

Meanwhile, not surprisingly, the usual suspects are cock-a-hoop at the findings of a poll initiated by the lefty "Zionist" group Yachad in the UK, described here and elsewhere:

How very disappointing for them to find that the polling was fundamentally flawed, as Judy Keiner indicates here and as proclaimed below in the Manchester Jewish Telegraph, which notes separately:

"The poll commissioned by Yachad makes surprising reading. It concludes that British Jews had shown "feelings of despair" over Israel and that 75 per cent felt that the building of settlements was an obstacle to peace. The poll, conducted by a respected organisation, obviously used accepted scientific methods devised by psephologists, including a suitable sample. And we do not seek in any way to doubt the integrity of those involved.

Yet, an expert in the field has told the Jewish Telegraph that it appears to show bias. Statistics can always be interpreted in a variety of ways, depending upon who commissioned a poll, thus the oft-used phrase describing the persuasive use of numbers: 'Lies, damned lies and statistics'. In this case, 1,131 Jews were polled and yet we would hazard a guess that a straw poll of the community at all levels would not agree with Yachad's conclusions.

If the Jewish Telegraph's correspondence columns are anything to go by - and they tend to reflect fairly accurately the feelings of the northern and Scottish communities among which we circulate - readers have not expressed despair over Israel in the past 12 months or so and have not been overly critical of the state's settlements' policy."

(Hat tip: D.B.)

And London 7/7