"In Israel ... Whether You Are a Jew or an Arab You Are Free" (video)

"Share this!" suggests an Israel supporter on Facebook.  So although the video isn't brand new, but tell important truths, I am.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tu-5xxZJxmA

More here

Exposing The Arab Narrative's "Inversion of Reality"

Click HERE

Ahead of Prince William's visit next week to Jordan, Israel and the areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority Marvellous Melanie reminds us  of nefarious Foreign and Commonwealth Office manipulation in the matter via semantics.

Inter alia, she writes:

'Britain is implying that the Old City of Jerusalem, which houses the holiest sites in Judaism and Christianity, belongs as of right to the “Palestinians” and is illegitimately “occupied” by Israel. (That may be the inescapable logic of Britain’s position, but it normally sidesteps this most sensitive of implications). Worse still, it appears that the UK government is also saying that the Western Wall – the retaining wall of the ancient Jewish Temple, one of the most sacred places in Judaism – also belongs as of right to the “Palestinians”.... 

If Israel really has accepted “Britain and the European Union’s definition of east Jerusalem as ‘an occupied Palestinian territory’”, it has made itself complicit in one of the Arab world’s Big Lies. For the issue here is not just about the territorial status of Jerusalem’s Old City and the Western Wall.

There are no “occupied Palestinian territories” because there never were any Palestinian territories at all. There never was a sovereign country called Palestine, and there never were Arabs called Palestinians – until they were invented solely to destroy the Jews’ historic entitlement to the land.

For around four centuries, the lands which now constitute Israel, the West Bank and Gaza were occupied by the Ottoman empire. After the First World War they were administered by Britain under the Palestine Mandate; after the 1948 Arab war of extermination against the new State of Israel the area beyond the ceasefire lines, including east Jerusalem, was illegally occupied by Jordan (which desecrated and ripped up synagogues and ancient Jewish gravestones).

“Occupied Palestinian territories” is quite simply a lie several times over....'

Meanwhile, here's a recent talk by Irving Weisdorf, founder and CEO of The Mozuud Freedom Foundation, at Toronto's Holy Blossom Temple about the "inversion of reality" that characterises the Arab narrative regarding Israel and its history.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32so9SStfsE

David Singer: Trump gets Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrein, UAE and Oman talking

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

He writes:

President Trump has amazingly managed to cut through 100 years of Arab-Jewish antagonism by hosting a conference at the White House on 13 March with representatives from 20 countries  – including Israel and seven Arab states (“Conference”).

Ostensibly called to discuss solutions to the worsening humanitarian and economic conditions in Gaza – this Conference also has very significant ramifications for Trump’s soon-to-be-released proposals to end the 100 years-old Arab-Jewish conflict.

Convened by White House Senior Advisor Jared Kushner, Special Representative for International Negotiations Jason Greenblatt, and members of the National Security Council (NSC) staff and the Department of State – the Conference was attended by representatives from the United Nations, the European Union, the Office of the Quartet, and the following countries: Bahrain, Canada, Cyprus, Egypt, France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Netherlands, Norway, Oman, Qatar, Sweden, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom.

Shamefully the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) claiming to be the sole spokesperson for the Gazan Arabs since 1974 – could not set aside its enmity for Trump to attend this truly-international Conference designed to relieve the hell-hole that Gaza has become since Israel’s unilateral Disengagement in 2005.

PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas could well rue his decision to boycott this Conference following his virulent reaction to Trump’s decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and move the US Embassy there in May on the occasion of Israel’s 70th anniversary.

The White House Readout makes no bones about where Trump wanted this Conference to go: 

“The Administration of President Donald J. Trump believes that deteriorating humanitarian conditions in Gaza require immediate attention. The situation in Gaza must be solved for humanitarian reasons and for ensuring the security of Egypt and Israel. It is also a necessary step toward reaching a comprehensive peace agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians, including Palestinians in both Gaza and the West Bank.” 

The PLO no-show at the White House could see Abbas being excluded from any new negotiations with Israel under Trump’s eagerly-awaited proposals. Trump does not take kindly to such PLO grandstanding. After unsuccessful negotiations between Israel and the PLO spanning the last 25 years – Abbas’s latest Presidential rebuff is the height of arrogance and stupidity.

Trump’s “ultimate deal” could see Israel negotiating with an Arab delegation to replace the PLO – comprising White House attendees Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrein, UAE, and Oman – Arab States that have no diplomatic relations with Israel – but who had the courage to publicly meet with – and talk to – Israel at the Conference.

They would join the other two Arab States that attended the Conference – Egypt and Jordan – who have enjoyed diplomatic relations with Israel since respectively signing peace treaties in 1979 and 1994.

For far too long the PLO has sought to define the 100 years old unresolved Arab-Jewish conflict as one involving only “Palestinians” and “Israelis”  – when no “Israelis” existed until 1948 and no “Palestinians” existed until 1964.

This false PLO narrative has been swallowed hook line and sinker by the United Nations and the European Union. Their on-going support has enabled the PLO to remain sole Arab negotiator with Israel over the last 25 years – with Arab League backing – seeking to create a second Palestinian Arab State - in addition to Jordan – in former Mandatory Palestine.

Trump’s Conference has junked such thinking, shown there are seven other Arab interlocutors ready to negotiate with Israel under American auspices and seen the PLO commit political suicide.
Those who continue to pillory Trump and underestimate his unique skills as an incredible circuit breaker are becoming increasingly irrelevant.

"There is No Other Example in the World Today of a State Targeted for Extinction" (video)

Still sharply relevant, as this video extract by Moshe Borisoff (with Hebrew subtitles) recognises..

"There were no settlements prior to 1967.  Why wasn't there peace?"

Dennis Prager's brilliant speech at the Oxford Union in 2014 on the "facile moral thinking that pervades our world":

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsBR2nomfwc)

Oxford Union longer version here

"An Important Day For Justice At The United Nations" (video)

Well, it's not often we can say that when Israel's in the dock at that hijacked forum, eh?

Here's the splendid Hillel Neuer of UNWatch on 23 September regarding Western nations' response to the latest ganging up against Israel by such paragons of Human Rights legislation and practice as Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia on the subject of, er, supposed human rights violations by the Zionist Entity:

 'Today is an important day for justice at the United Nations.

In free and democratic societies governed by the rule of law and the principle of constitutionalism, right is preserved by an independent judiciary empowered to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority.

Here at the United Nations, the system works differently. Here, the majority faction has the power to decide whatever it wants. There are no limits. The minority faction has no judicial recourse, no right of appeal, no remedy.

Now, today we meet under Agenda Item 7, which singles out one nation, Israel, for differential and discriminatory treatment....

We see the European Union did not take the floor in this debate. The United States did not take the floor. Nor did Canada, Australia, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, and many other liberal democracies.

Today we heard loudest from deeds, not words. The free and democratic world ... have spoken for justice.'

 

Read more here

Islamic Antisemitism: Czech President Checkmates The OIC

Two interesting ripostes by public figures from two different countries nearly 90 years apart just caught my eye online.

The first (for I'll go chronologically) is quoted by Eli E. Hertz of the Myths and Facts website in a new post aptly titled "So Much For Arab Nationality" and cited here:

“In 1926, Lord Plumer was appointed as the second High Commissioner of Palestine. The Arabs within the Mandate were infuriated when Plumer stood up for the Zionists’ national anthem Hatikva during ceremonies held in his honor when Plumer first visited Tel Aviv. When a delegation of Palestinian Arabs protested Plumer’s ‘Zionist bias,’ the High Commissioner asked the Arabs if he remained seated when their national anthem was played, ‘wouldn’t you regard my behavior as most unmannerly?’ Met by silence, Plumer asked: ‘By the way, have you got a national anthem?’  When the delegation replied with chagrin that they did not, he snapped back, “I think you had better get one as soon as possible.”

As Hertz notes in connection with the above incident:

"Rejection of Jewish nationalism from the 1920s attempted to prevent the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine  by violence and defiance of any form of Jewish political power; including any plans to share stewardship with Arabs which crystallized into the expression of Palestinianism. No other positive definition of an Arab-Palestinian people has surfaced.... But it took the Palestinians more than 60 years to heed Plumer’s advice."

The other interesting riposte comes from Czech president Miloš Zeman, whose under-reported outstanding speech on Israel's Independence Day, in the wake of the recent Brussels atrocity, regarding Islamic antisemitism and violence prompted an angry reaction from the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).

Zeman (pictured) had observed that

"There are dozens of days of independence being celebrated every year in the Czech Republic. Some I may attend, others I cannot. There is one I can never miss, however: it’s the Israeli Independence Day"

 and went on to say,  inter alia:

'There was a hideous assassination in the flower of Europe in the heart of European Union in a Jewish museum in Brussels. I will not let myself being calmed down by the declaration that there are only tiny fringe groups behind it. On the contrary, I am convinced that this xenophobia, and let’s call it racism or antisemitism, emerges from the very essence of the ideology these groups subscribe to.

So let me quote one of their sacred texts to support this statement: “A tree says, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. A stone says, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.” I would criticize those calling for the killing of Arabs, but I do not know of any movement calling for mass murdering of Arabs. However, I know of one anti-civilisation movement calling for the mass murder of Jews.

After all, one of the paragraphs of the statutes of Hamas says: “Kill every Jew you see.” Do we really want to pretend that this is an extreme viewpoint? Do we really want to be politically correct and say that everyone is nice and only a small group of extremists and fundamentalists is committing such crimes?'

The OIC demanded an apology.  But the courageous Miloš Zeman is standing his ground. To quote his spokesperson Jiří Ovčáček:

“President Zeman definitely does not intend to apologise. For the president would consider it blasphemy to apologise for the quotation of a sacred Islamic text.”

All praise for a European head of state who puts most of the rest of them to shame!

Not for nothing had he declared in his speech:

"There are states with whom we share the same values, such as the political horizon of free elections or a free market economy. However, no one threatens these states with wiping them off the map. No one fires at their border towns; no one wishes that their citizens would leave their country. There is a term, political correctness. This term I consider to be a euphemism for political cowardice. Therefore, let me not be cowardly."

Let us not forget, incidentally, that the Czechs were the most sympathetic of any Central European peoples towards the Jews during the dark twentieth-century interwar period.  Zeman seems a worthy successor to Beneš and Masaryk.

The Lies That Bind, The Lies That Blind

Alan Hart, ex-BBC and ex-ITN broadcaster and 9/11 truther, as quoted here :

"The conflict in and over Palestine that became Israel is the cancer at the heart of international affairs, and I know from long personal experience how costly and even

dangerous it can be to tell the truth about the making and sustaining of it when powerful vested interests do not want the truth to be told....

.... Most if not all the Jews who went to Palestine in response to Zionism’s call had no biological connection to the ancient Hebrews. The assertion that there are two peoples with an equal claim to the same land is nonsense.

....The assertion of Israel’s leaders that their state has lived in constant danger of annihilation, the “driving into the sea” of its Jews, is Zionist propaganda nonsense.... As I document in detail in my book ...  Israel’s existence has never, ever, been in danger from any combination of Arab military force ..." [Emphasis added]

The Anglican vicar of Virginia Water last year to his Facebook followers: 

"Israel has attacked every one of its neighbours in its short history."

New Delhi journalist Dr Zafarul-Islam Khan in an article published this week (to which the

Reverend Sizer linked on Facebook):

"With the exception of the October (Ramadan) 1973 War, which was started by Egypt and Syria to liberate their lands occupied by the Zionist state since 1967, Israel has started every single war in the Middle East in order to expand at the expense of its neighbours...."

What is it with this revisionism, this assault on the facts of history?

The lies that bind the Israel-bashers, the lies that blind the ignorant and gullible, are of course weapons in the battle to delegitimise the world's only Jewish State, and see it replaced by what Khan describes as "a single democratic state in Palestine free of Zionist ideology":

"This is the only solution to allow the right of return of the Palestinian refugees... This practical, just and humanitarian solution will also contain Israel as an expansionist and threatening entity which has become a danger to the peace and stability of the whole region. The Middle East will have no security or stability without the effective "de-Zionisation" of Palestine....

Israel has been able to continue its occupation, oppression and continuous expansion as a result of the vicious exploitation of world sympathy arising from the obscene Nazi Holocaust and cultivating the false image of a small, defenceless country surrounded by powerful enemies." 

Dr Haidar Eid of the Department of English Literature, at Gaza's  Al-Aqsa University has declared:

"The one-state solution is the only solution through which the Palestinian rights called for by the BDS movement can be achieved. Moreover, it is a very generous compromise from the oppressed colonized to the settler colonialists, offering citizenship in a state with total equality, exactly like what happened in South Africa, where white settlers were offered the same generous compromise by the indigenous population...."

A pseudonymous Facebook user, ostensibly Arab, rather let the cat out of the bag by commenting the other day (on Sizer's wall, as it happens, though the vicar, of course, cannot be held responsible for the sentiments in the screed):

'One day soon, my friends, you will come to realize that just like the two states, the delusion of “one state” will also drop dead....

Friends who promote a binational “one state”, are not aware of the serious, nay catastrophic implications on Palestinians.

The major issue remains about OWNERSHIP RIGHTS of the STOLEN LANDS, as well as the APPARATUS of POWER which is, and will REMAIN in the hands of ideologically racist Jewish “israelis”

The ENTIRE LAND of PALESTINE was STOLEN....

The binational state means in plain language:

Inviting the Zionist entity to ANNEX and OCCUPY what is left of Palestine...

Blessing the invaders with the “right” to keep the LOOT of whatever they have captured through wars of conquest and aggression...

 Campaigning to upgrade the Palestinians’ status from “occupied” to “slaves”, living under the boot of Jewish supremacists who see Palestinians and other goyim as animals created only to serve Jews....

No alternative to the Algerian model of FULL LIBERATION.

So friends, THINK ALGERIA … It has only been few decades ago since Algeria gained its liberation from French SETTLER COLONIZATION, which lasted almost 150 years....

When I talk about the Algerian model I mean:

REVOKING ISRAEL’S UN MEMBERSHIP: The racist genocidal occupation entity, which was in breach of UN Charters, which has violated and defied more UN resolutions and charter principles than any other. This illegitimate entity has no moral or legal ground whatsoever to be a member of the UN. Its membership is a disgrace on the face of humanity and a mockery of International Law. Israel’s UN membership should have never happened in the first place.

FULL SOVEREIGNTY of the Palestinian Nation over their ancestral country: Palestine, with a constitution and a political system of their own independent choice. That is least that can be done to compensate for the a century of aggression, thievery, and unwarranted subjugation.

PROSECUTION OF WAR CRIMINALS: plans of which should start immediately without delay, A Palestinian JUDICIARY and IMMIGRATION System, will respectively prosecute former “Israeli” criminals and their associates, and/or grant or decline on an individual basis, a RIGHT TO REMAIN, based on criteria solely to be defined by said Immigration and Integration Services, which would take into consideration the history of the individuals and the level of their participation in maintaining the occupation.

NATIONALISATION AND PALESTINIAN CITIZENSHIP: anyone who can prove non-participation in the ex-Israeli occupation apparatus, and who has demonstrated ability and willingness to a respectable and law-abiding conduct, will probably obtain a chance to gain unrestricted Palestinian citizenship, with equal rights… Jewish “Israelis” also have the right to go back to wherever country they came from, the have the same right to return to their native countries.

RETURN, RESTITUTION AND COMPENSATIONS: Palestine and the Palestinian Nation at large, are entitled to full and unconditional Restitution of their land and property whenever possible, assorted with appropriate Compensation for more than seven decades of deprivation and slow genocide, Cultural destruction, and a whole array of atrocities and usurpation..

It is pretty obvious that the model I propose will not be welcomed by “israelis”, nor will it come about by the “return” to negotiation no matter how intense the rounds may become. It will not happen by “road maps” either, nor by sudden change of heart coupled with pure acts of kindness and generosity of “israelis”

RESISTANCE, is the keyword.... 

Moreover, “israel” cannot afford peace; it relies on wars, wars and more wars for its very internal survival.

“israel” cannot afford to live even for a moment of real permanent peace, simply because its INTERNAL SURVIVAL requires an ever present “EXTERNAL THREAT”, which allows that incohesive assortment of people to stick together and prevents that society from imploding from within.

That society is divided more than anyone could imagine. But its ills are concealed by an utterly exaggerated bordering mythical history of persecution, and an extremely terrifying future with a holocaust around every corner and a new Hitler popping his head in different country each time. Thus turning their present into a perpetual war-preparation and being in a permanent standby state.

....Furthermore, in such state of affairs, i.e with this need for wars to stay alive, there is another crucial component, “israel” cannot afford to lose any of its wars. Any loss for “israel” is an END GAME…. GAME OVER....

For them, it is simply a lose lose situation… For us, to gain liberation, it is only a matter of time and patience, and Palestinians have got plenty of both.'

The Muslim Anti-Israel Blame Game: A Turk Who Gets It & A Palestinian Who Sort Of Does

From Turkish broadcaster Sinem Tezyapar,  an enlightened view of the Muslim anti-Israel blame game:

"Whenever calamities befall Muslim-majority nations, there is always a country to blame: Israel. Is there a revolution against a tyrant? Zionists are responsible. Who else could be at fault if there is a clash between Sunni and Shia groups? The Jews. Did a bomb explode on the other side of the world, or is there a problem with the economy? No need look any further than Israel. And where else would the control center for destabilizing the Arab world be? In Tel Aviv, of course!

 The late Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi blamed Israel for the violence and unrest in Africa. Former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh said that the turmoil in the Arab world is a pro-Zionist conspiracy. Saudi cleric Sheikh Ismae’il al-Hafoufi blamed Israel for the desecration of Islamic holy sites in Syria. Sheik Abd al-Jalil al-Karouri, a Sudanese cleric, pointed to Israel for the Boston and Texas bombings. And then there’s the belief that Zionists planned the tragic events of Sept. 11, 2001, to demonize Arabs and Muslims in the eyes of the world.

This madness of putting the blame on Zionists — and Israel in general — is a knee-jerk reaction with no basis in logic. The most surprising part is that so many people believe this without question and continue to disseminate such rumors far and wide.

Syria, Egypt, Iran and Lebanon all aggressively hold the “Zionist regime” responsible for their woes. While Bashar Assad accuses Israel of trying to destabilize Syria, the Syrian opposition blames Israel for assisting the Assad regime by giving them diplomatic cover. Both sides see Israel as responsible for all the bloodshed and unrest going on in Syria. Now with the possibility of an international intervention in Syria, Iranian legislators and commanders are issuing blunt warnings, saying any military strike from the United States on Syria would lead to a retaliatory attack on Israel. Israel’s staying out of the equation, it seems, is simply not possible. Even though Israeli politicians refrain from taking sides in the regional conflicts, all sides point toward Israel anyhow....

It must sound like a bizarre joke for some, but this tragicomic situation is quite serious for many in the Middle East. We are no longer surprised to hear Israel’s being the scapegoat for every single evil in the world, but Iran’s blaming the Zionist entity for the deadly earthquake in Iran was pushing the limits of credulity. This, despite the fact that Jews are a handful of people, a tiny population when compared to the overall population of the world.

Now let’s look at what is really going on in the Islamic-Arab world. There is a continuous and unending stream of hate — hate of the Shia, hate of the Wahabbi, hate of the Sunni, hate of the Alawi, hate of the Christians, hate of the Jews and so on. We also see slogans such as: “May God Destroy Israel,” “Down With the United States,” “Damn the West.” Hatred is deeply ingrained in their tradition, in their culture and in their own education. This fierce, venomous style is what is tearing the Islamic world apart; this is exactly what is happening in Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Pakistan and others — Muslims killing Muslims.

This outcome is the result of intense efforts by some Muslim clerics who encourage hatred of the “other.” Muslims kill each other and then both sides blame the Jews. Wahabbi scholars say that all Sunnis are unbelievers and should be destroyed. Sunni scholars say Shias are unbelievers and their death is obligatory. Shias say that it is obligatory to kill Sunnis, as they are enemies. These are Muslim clerics who are promoting the most violent brand of sectarianism, preaching hatred and calling upon their followers to commit massacres. How do Jews make Muslims kill other Muslims? ...."

(Read the entire article here) Hat tip: StandWithUs

Her article reminds me of something written in the Comment section of this Palestinian website recently by Khalid Amayreh, resident in the West Bank, and no fan of Israel, since, he tells his readers, he "lost three uncles to Zionist bullets":

"As a Palestinian, I am really shocked and ashamed by the brazenly unethical support  and cheap  opportunism the Palestinian Authority (PA) is displaying vis-à-vis the murderous regimes in Damascus and Cairo.

Indeed, despite the manifestly genocidal crimes of the Nazi-like regime in Syria against its own people, including the latest chemical massacre at the Eastern Ghouta near Damascus, the PA refused to utter a single word in condemnation of the carnage....

This is more than just political blindness and moral duplicity. This is no less than crossing all moral and ethical red lines. Keeping silent about the ongoing genocide in Syria at the hands of the murderer of Damascus, let alone violently dispersing peaceful demonstrators protesting Assad's Nazi-like behavior, will be an indelible stigma of shame on the forehead of the PA leadership....

.... The evil backing by the PA regime of the murderous juntas in Damascus and Cairo is really a colossal moral insult to the glorious Palestinian struggle.

This is because it is starkly hypocritical and morally duplicitous to cheer the murderous killings of Syrian and Egyptian civilians at the hands of sub-human thugs in both Arab countries while daring to criticize the Zionist state of Israel for markedly lesser crimes against us Palestinians.

Yes, Israel killed untold numbers of Palestinians, civilians and freedom fighters alike. But Israel is unlikely to have reached this level of barbarianism and depravity. This may be politically incorrect to say, however the pornographic massacres by the  Sisi and Assad gangs have left us no margin for  prevarication or juggling with words....

 Israelis and Jews didn't celebrate these massacres [he lists the usual litany in the anti-Israel arsenal] as some hopelessly pathetic Arabs are now celebrating "the victories" of the Egyptian and Syrian armies against women and children in Rabaa and Ghouta...."

How the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation Undermines Israel

During the prelude to the the Hamas-Fatah reconciliation announced last week, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu warned that

 "The Palestinian Authority has to choose either peace with Israel or peace with Hamas. Peace is impossible with both of them. Hamas is trying to destroy Israel, and sends missiles on our cities and our children."

 In response to Netanyahu's statement, a spokesman for PA President Mahmoud Abbas announced: "we say that the Palestinian reconciliation and the agreement that was signed today in Cairo are internal Palestinian issues."

Concurring,  Hamas representative Mahmoud Azhar reiterated that his organisation's policy is "no recognition [of Israel] and no negotiations". (http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=4951)

Switzerland is one of the few Western countries to talk openly with Hamas, and a reader of my blog, Roger, who resides in Switzerland, has alerted me to outrageously contentious remarks by Swiss analyst Riccardo Bocco in the course of an interview by Swissinfo, the news platform of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation.

Explains Roger:

"I have complained again and again about their relentless demonisation and delegitimisation of Israel but to no avail. This interview is a typical example."

Bocco (pictured), a Middle East specialist at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, said, inter alia:

"The negotiations that were going on had been stalled until the beginning of 2011. The events of the Arab Spring have just sped things up, pushing Hamas and Fatah to get together....

We really need to wait and see what the precise contents of the agreement are. It will be interesting to see what position Hamas takes: will it renounce violence and agree to recognise the state of Israel? From a purely strategic point of view, Hamas may be ready to make concessions, as long as there is some reciprocity - they too want to be recognised.Netanyahu has of course no interest in a united Fatah and Hamas. He has no real desire to make peace. He would be happy with a form of economic peace which would not involve the creation of a Palestinian state. As long as there are internal divisions among the Palestinians, Israel can point to the fact that there are no negotiation partners representative of the whole Palestinian people.

I am not trying to defend Hamas here, but we are looking at two kinds of terrorism: Hamas kills Israeli civilians, and Israel carries on its own state terrorism targeting the Palestinian civilian population. Getting out of this dilemma will require political will which only the United States can provide.

If the processes of change presently going on, particularly in Egypt, yield positive results - for example with the adoption of political pluralism - this will continue to give an impulse to processes of democratisation in other countries.

Israel will find itself in difficulty once it is no longer able to claim that it is the only democracy in the Middle East. At that point, one might begin to wonder about the kind of "democracy" that really exists in Israel, a country which discriminates against its Palestinian minority and which occupies another state using processes of colonisation.

To the best of my knowledge, there was no direct Swiss involvement in this latest Cairo agreement. I don’t know what role Swiss diplomacy will have in future, but I feel proud of what it has accomplished so far.

When there was that boycott of Hamas in 2006, Switzerland was one of the few to engage in dialogue with the new administration. The Swiss government’s position is an intelligent one. To boycott Hamas, as the Americans and Israelis did, just sends a message to al-Qaida and other extremist groups that following the path of democracy to achieve power gets you nowhere. And what was the result? Many of them have just kept up the armed struggle."

http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/specials/the_arab_spring/Arab_Spring_brings_Fatah_and_Hamas_together.html?cid=30119032

David Littman's "Little Red Book": How Arab Theologians Depict Jews and Israel

In 1961 British-born David Littman, who later moved to Switzerland with his Egyptian-born wife Gisèle, undertook with her a covert mission in Morocco which led to over 500 Jewish children finding refuge in Israel.

Gisèle is well-known today under her pseudonym Bat Ye'or ("Daughter of the Nile"), having authored The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians under Islam (1985) and Eurabia: the Euro-Arab Axis (2005).

With her husband David, she has been active in the World Organization for Jews in Arab Countries.

David Littman's important, illuminating text - known to some as his "little red book" - on the way Arab theologians depict Jews and Israel, is essential viewing, and available here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/51211757/Arab-Theologians-on-Jews-and-Israel-4th-Edition

See also the posts by Brian of London, whose input has made this E-Book possible, and who advises that hard copies will hopefully be out soon: http://www.israellycool.com/2011/04/11/arab-theologians-on-jews-israel/ and http://www.israellycool.com/2011/03/22/arab-theologians-on-jews-and-israel-settlement/

The Importance of the Whole Truth About Palestine, 1919-48

The following article, entitled "Palestine - Understanding the Present by Remembering the Past," is by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.  It comes via the antipodean J-Wire service.  The article by retired Saudi commodore Abdulateef Al-Mulhim to which Singer refers was the subject of an earlier post by me and can be accessed here: http://arabnews.com/opinion/columns/article/322715ece

Writes David Singer:

'An article recently written by a retired Commodore of the Royal Saudi Navy – Abdulateef Al-Mulhim - titled “What if Arabs had recognized the State of Israel in 1948?” – has been acknowledged by many as a brave initiative by a prominent Arab to step outside the almost monolithic Arab viewpoint that has consistently refused to recognize Israel in the 73 years since its establishment in 1948.

There have been some significant cracks in the Arab wall of rejectionism since 1948 – Israel’s peace treaties with Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994 and the Oslo Accords signed between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1993.

But none has been sufficient to end the conflict between Jews and Arabs in Palestine that has raged since about 1880.

Particularly noteworthy is the fact that the Commodore’s article was published by Arab News – Saudi Arabia’s first English-language newspaper founded in 1975. Today, it is one of 29 publications produced by Saudi Research & Publishing Company, a subsidiary of Saudi Research & Marketing Group.

Commodore Al-Mulhim however only tells half the story by commencing his narrative in 1948 – rather than 1919. No understanding of the Jewish-Arab conflict in Palestine is possible without including those 29 turbulent years.

By 1948 both Jews and Arabs had become firmly entrenched in their political views over the previous 29 years. Both had by then endured much death and suffering following a series of riots, massacres, Commissions and Inquiries that abruptly ended the high hopes and expectations that had followed Turkey’s defeat in the First World War.

Britain’s failure to resolve the Arab-Jewish conflict in Palestine between 1919-1947 had led to Britain declaring its intention to hand over its League of Nations approved Mandate to a nascent United Nations – whose 1947 plan for partition into an Arab state and a Jewish State was accepted by the Jews but rejected by the Arabs.

By then it was too late to prevent the 1948 War that was to follow Israel’s Declaration of Independence and the immediate invasion of Palestine by six Arab armies intent on eradicating the existence of the Jewish State – creating problems and hatreds that have remained unresolved ever since.

It had all seemed so different and so promising in 1919.

The defeat of the Turks and the capture of huge swathes of the Ottoman Empire ruled by Turkey for 400 years had opened up the exciting prospect for creating independence and self-determination for the Arab populations living there and for the Jews who had been returning since the 1880’s to join a small band of their brethren who had maintained a continuous presence in Palestine – their historic and biblical homeland.

At the Peace Conference in Versailles an Agreement signed on 3 January 1919 had contained the following preamble :

“His Royal Highness the Emir Feisal, representing and acting on behalf of the Arab Kingdom of Hedjaz, and Dr. Chaim Weizmann, representing and acting on behalf of the Zionist Organization. mindful of the racial kinship and ancient bonds existing between the Arabs and the Jewish people, and realising that the surest means of working out the consummation of their national aspirations is through the closest possible collaboration in the development of the Arab State and Palestine, and being desirous further of confirming the good understanding which exists between them … "

The San Remo Conference held between the Principal Allied Powers – Great Britain, France, Italy and Japan – had resolved on 25 April 1920:

“to entrust, by application of the provisions of Article 22 [of the Covenant of the League of Nations], the administration of Palestine, within such boundaries as may be determined by the Principal Allied Powers, to a Mandatory, to be selected by the said Powers. The Mandatory will be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on November 8, 1917, by the British Government, and adopted by the other Allied Powers, in favour of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non- Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”

The terms of the Treaty of Sevres agreed on 10 August 1920 by the Principal Allied Powers and the Allied Powers – Armenia, Belgium, Greece, the Hedjaz, Poland, Portugal Roumania, the Serb-Croat-Slovene State and Czecho-Slovakia – unanimously endorsed the San Remo Conference Resolution – paving the way for the creation of separate Mandates for each of Palestine, Syria and Lebanon, and Mesopotamia with the unanimous agreement of all 51 member States of the League of Nations.

The proposed territorial carve up between Jews and Arabs had involved allocating the Arabs 99.999% of the liberated Ottoman territory – whilst the Jews were to receive the right to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in just 0.001% of such land in accordance with the 1917 Balfour Declaration.

The Arabs regrettably were to have none of this perceived meddling in their part of the world.

Britain’s attempt to placate Arab objections by belatedly denying the Jews the right to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in Transjordan – some 78% of the small sliver of land originally to be made available to them – did not help achieve a breakthrough.

The Arabs did not accept – and never have accepted – the disposition of any part of the Ottoman captured territory to the Jews. If they had the Middle East would have been a different place today.

Understanding the history of Palestine between 1919 -1948 is therefore critically important and very relevant in 2011 because it highlights that

■Israel’s establishment in 1948 as the Jewish State had its legal basis in the events that began in and took place during 1919-1947 as part of an internationally endorsed policy of granting self-determination for both Jews and Arabs in the liberated territories of the Ottoman Empire

■The conflict in former Palestine still remains one between “Jews” and “Arabs” – not “Israelis” and “Palestinians”

Telling only half the story – and ignoring the other half – has become a recipe for misunderstanding and confusion and a real impediment to ending the current conflict.'

Melanie on her "Felony": Melanie Phillips interviewed regarding Arab Barbarism and Media Bias against Israel (video)

In a recent post (http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/2011/03/stinker-out-of-bedfordshire.html) I told how an article on The Spectator website by the British columnist Melanie Phillips, in which she referred to the barbarism of the Arabs who perpetrated the Itamar massacre, has been referred to British police.  In this interview with Yaakov Achi-Meir on Israeli TV's Channel One Ms Phillips defends her choice of phrase, and explains how the British media are "world leaders" in the "moral inversion" which leads it to ignore atrocities against Israel and only the military responses to Israel, thus contributing materially to the public's impression of Israel as the aggressor.  Ms Phillips pulls no punches in condemning Arab attitudes and in telling how Israel should be dealing with its public relations problem.

Hat tip for the original video http://www.iba.org.il/olam to Avraham Reiss of Jerusalem

What Next for Egypt? (video)

Brought to you by the BBC College of Journalism (CoJo), and including a discussion of the influence of Iran, the Muslim Brotherhood, and the impact on Israel:

Arab Regimes in Glass Houses: A Palestinian in Praise of Israel

While, in pursuit of Appeasement, William Hague and his Arabist acolytes at the Foreign Office – most notoriously, at present, Middle East specialist Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, whose astonishingly ignorant absurdities (laughable were they not so tragic) I referred to in my previous blog – do their best to undermine Israel, some Arab voices are honest and courageous enough to speak in Israel’s defence.

The following article, entitled, “Israel, the Good Enemy,” is by UK-based research student Mudar Zahran, a Jordanian of Palestinian background. Mr Zahran, who graduated from university in the USA with two master’s degrees, has been a strategist for the American Embassy in Amman. His articles are obtainable online on the widely-circulating Arab Times. This article, which I found at http://qudosi.com/politics/64-mid-east--south-asia/932-israel-the-good-enemy-, has been very lightly edited by me for clarity of grammar:

Israel’s relationship to the Palestinians has always been globally approached with standardized heavy criticism made to Israel. The main charges waved in Israel’s face have always been “the disapropriate [disproportionate] use of force” and “discrimination”.

Israel’s critics, either willingly or out of ignorance, choose to overlook the way many Arab countries mistreat Palestinians. Some Arab countries are almost never blamed for what they have been doing to the Palestinians for decades. Such selective recognition of facts by Israel’s critics is bizarre when weighed by truth instead of myths.

In December of 2008, Israel launched Operation “Cast Lead” against Hamas which was launching rockets on Southern Israel on a daily basis. This operation has resulted in the death of more than 1,400 Palestinians, many said to be civilians; an absolute tragedy, nonetheless. Those criticizing Israel fail to recognize that the number of casualties is small comparing to Gaza’s population of 1.5 million, considering the high density of Gaza’s population per square kilometre, the number suggests the Israeli forces were very cautious in carrying out their attacks, despite the fact that they were chasing a moving target, Hamas militants. If Israeli forces were targeting Palestinian civilians, the number of the dead would have reached tens of thousands.

On comparison; in 1976, Lebanese militiamen butchered 2,000 Palestinians; almost wiping out the entire population of Tell al-Zaatar refugee camp within days. This was revisited again in 1982 in Sabra and Shatelah [Chatilla] massacre; where, in less than four days, Lebanese militiamen killed thousands of women and children who posed no threat, as most Palestinian fighters had left then to Tunisia. Two years ago, Al-Jazeera satellite network aired rare footage of Palestinians running to Israeli soldiers for refuge from the massacre.

Furthermore, most Arab atrocities against Palestinians have included documented rape cases, even of children, while not a single rape case has been reported against Israeli forces in more than sixty years of operations.

Arab governments’ oppression of the Palestinians does not stop at bloodshed and wholesale slaughters, in fact the more troubling aspects of the way they treat Palestinians is in the systematic long-range exclusion and discrimination. In Arab countries where Palestinians make up a good percentage of the population; they are depraved of all basic necessities, starting with education, down to basic healthcare. Even at [sic] countries that have granted the Palestinians citizenship, the Palestinians stand helpless and banned from every potential to improve their livelihoods.

Israel, on the other hand, has always allowed Palestinians to work there and to get paid in Western standards, and even had allowed them generous access to healthcare. In fact, Israel has also welcomed Palestinians as visitors, patients and even as investors, this generosity was only limited when Hamas started bombing Israeli civilians with no signs of an end in sight.

The complexity Israel has with Palestinians revolves around security rather than ideological issues. Israel does not have an aim to enslave the Palestinians for life or purposely degrade their humanity, while many Arab countries have designed their systems to discriminate and humiliate the Palestinians, squeezing them into illiteracy and poverty while milking them for tax money.

This has become most visible recently with calls in some Arab countries to revoke [the] citizenship of all Palestinians there and actually to force them to seek local guarantors to obtain residency, thus enslaving them for life.

This comes as a deeper shock for Palestinians when they see Israeli Arabs, with many of them describing themselves as “Palestinians in Israel”; those are full citizens of Israel with access to all privileges. Israeli Arabs are fully represented inside the Knesset while Palestinians, in their Arab homeland, are allowed only symbolic presence in parliaments, even at countries where they are the majority. And while some Arab countries selectively withdraw citizenship from Palestinians, many Arab Knesset members do not hesitate to speak against Israel – with no fear of losing their citizenship or entitlements.

Still, while the world is most vocal about Israeli military operations, it fails to recognize that Israel has been dealing with non-stop unrest on its soil since the breakout of the Intifada in 1987. Has that Intifada taken place in any Arab country; it would have ended within the first couple of weeks with an Arab army killing more than ten thousands Palestinians, most being civilians. Examples of this are countless, and in all Arab countries hosting Palestinians; yet the world seems to think this reality is too overrated to recognize.

Today, with peace negotiations up and running, some Arab governments seem to want to butcher the Palestinians again on the altar of dictatorship by worsening their living conditions and making their lives more miserable, just to secure a better negotiating position or merely a seat at the negotiations table. Not to mention that many of those actually would rather see the negotiations fail in order to keep more international aid money flowing to them for “hosting” the Palestinians.

Quoting a commentator on one of my articles: “the Palestinians do obviously need a break from their sworn Arab friends”, and perhaps they can reconnect to them when they have learned a lesson or two from their Israeli “enemies”.

Meanwhile, the world will remain silent about the Palestinians’ suffering at the hands of some of their “brothers”, as it’s too occupied with Israel.

William Hague – Israel’s Fairweather Friend – and Little Sir Echo from the Camel Corps: “We Will All Suffer if Israel Persists in this Present Course of Trying to Survive by Force of Arms”

The actress Joan Collins once cruelly said of William Hague that he looks like a foetus. None of us can help our looks, and we can’t all be pin-ups, let alone perennial pin-ups like Joan herself, so I’m going to be much kinder. I’m going to say that in matters of foreign policy the First in PPE from Oxford looks like a dunce. The flat-voiced Yorkshireman who joined Conservative Friends of Israel when still a schoolboy is, as Foreign Secretary, a “friend” to Israel of a very dodgy sort.

Just like the man he calls his boss, in fact. David Cameron, always keen, it appeared, to keep his part-Jewish ancestry firmly under wraps until, desperate for votes in what looked unexpectedly like a very close-run race, he revealed not quite the full extent of it to the Jewish Chronicle just before last May’s election, in what looked suspiciously like a cynical bid for votes, is neither the most trustworthy of Tory politicians nor one who carries empathy for Israel in his gut. Just look at the way he behaved over the Mavi Marmara affair – proclaiming in Turkey (which he’s determined to see admitted to the EU) that Gaza is an "open air prison" and denouncing Israel’s defensive, well-justified attack on the IHH terrorists aboard the flotilla ((http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/2010/07/sick-man-of-europe-david-cameron-talks.html).

And now, with Israel – already imperilled by Iran, sliding ever nearer nuclear capability, by Hezbollah, and by Hamas – looking nervously upon the turmoil in Egypt, understandably deeply fearful that the 1979 Peace Treaty is under threat, Hague has the audacity to insist via “a blunt instruction” that Binyamin Netanyahu – the elected leader of a sovereign nation and an ally – “tone down” the rhetoric, as The Times reports in a big story on its front page today. Hague, says that paper, responding “to increasingly militaristic pronouncements by Mr Netanyahu, who has been urging his nation to prepare for ‘any outcome’ and vowing to ‘reinforce the might of the state of Israel’” declared ‘This should not be a time for belligerent language. It’s a time to inject greater urgency into the Middle East peace process.’

Hear Hague here, on Al Beeb (BBC radio 4’s Today programme: http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9391000/9391888.stm)

In that same broadcast you will hear Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles (British Ambassador to Israel, 2001-3; pictured) on the necessity for “tough love” towards Israel and the urgency for Israel to accept the peace that's "been on offer" to it since the Peel Commission of 1937 – what, no Arab rejectionism or violence or intransigence, Sir Sherard? – and to abide by the terms of the Balfour Declaration!

Israel (or rather the Jewish Agency) DID accept the Peel Commission report! The Arabs rejected it!!!

For those who don't know,  the report gave the Jews a small portion of land along the coast but the Arabs still said "No".

What an outstanding symbol of the twisting of history.

And that Cowper-Coles, a Foreign Office official and diplomat, doesn't even know that is really shocking! 

(See also Yisrael Medad's response to Sir Sherard's  nonsense:  http://myrightword.blogspot.com/2011/02/why-mandate-period-history-is-essential.html
and Melanie Phillips's demolition job:
http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/6686665/a-monstrous-inversion.thtml#comments)
Does Hague buy into the fiction that if only the “Israel-Palestine” problem were to be settled, there’d be no more strife in the Middle East? Is he so naive, or so beholden to the Arabists in the Foreign Office, that he believes that the responsibility for the current unrest lies with Israel, and that if only Israel were soft and malleable all would be sweetness and light?

Does he have not a clue about the antisemitism in the region or the lethal agenda of militant Islamists? It would appear so – and hearing Little Sir Echo (Coles) reinforces that view.

That superbly realistic Jerusalem Post columnist Caroline Glick has a written a book about her country called Shackled Warrior.

And “shackled warrior” is what Hague and Cameron and Coles evidently wish tiny Israel to be – fighting for its survival against fanatical murderous Islamists  including the Muslim Brotherhood (which of course spawned Hamas) if Egypt falls under their control –  with its sword arm, so to speak, chained behind its back.

From the great – the truly great – Lord Palmerston to Wee Willie Hague.

How is the mighty Foreign Secretaryship fallen.

But Masada shall not – must not –  fall again.

For if it did, the fall of Britain and the rest of Western civilisation would not be long behind.

The public figures who joined Jose Maria Aznar’s Friends of Israel Initiative know that full well.

It seems that Hague and Cameron and Coles do not.

Incidentally, have a look at Melanie Phillips’s post on Hague, if you haven't already:
http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/6684255/with-friends-like-this-who-needs-enemies.tht
and click back to see her superb take on David Cameron's speech regarding multiculturalism.