Daphne Anson: Byron Friends of Palestine

Eretz Israel is our unforgettable historic homeland...The Jews who will it shall achieve their State...And whatever we attempt there for our own benefit will redound mightily and beneficially to the good of all mankind. (Theodor Herzl, DerJudenstaat, 1896)

We offer peace and amity to all the neighbouring states and their peoples, and invite them to cooperate with the independent Jewish nation for the common good of all. The State of Israel is ready to contribute its full share to the peaceful progress and development of the Middle East. (From Proclamation of the State of Israel, 5 Iyar 5708; 14 May 1948)

With a liberal democratic political system operating under the rule of law, a flourishing market economy producing technological innovation to the benefit of the wider world, and a population as educated and cultured as anywhere in Europe or North America, Israel is a normal Western country with a right to be treated as such in the community of nations.... For the global jihad, Israel may be the first objective. But it will not be the last. (Friends of Israel Initiative)

Showing posts with label Byron Friends of Palestine. Show all posts

Wednesday, 15 August 2012

Duncan On A Fair Dinkum Hate Fest

Be sure to shun these goodies, Duncan!

The Byron Bay BDS Conference about which I blogged earlier has taken place, and one of their own, a fella called Duncan (perhaps the double-barreled Duncan who co-administers this Facebook page), has provided a r eport of sorts. Here's the lowdown from his keyboard:

"Do you remember acting against Apartheid? South Africa and Australia were politically and economically close but as the campaigns for international isolation of South Africa intensified in the 1970s and 80s, Australia placed itself firmly in the anti-apartheid camp, implementing oil, trade and arms embargo, as well as sport boycotts against South Africa.

Apartheid is still being imposed, as stated by the United Nations, but this time it’s by Israel against the people of Arab heritage whose soil the state of Israel now occupies. International trade boycotts, divestments and sanctions (BDS) are now being called for to pressure Israel to cease this apartheid and to bring freedom, justice and equality for the Palestinian people.

The BDS Conference opened in Byron on a cold and windy Sunday night but what the participants had to say warmed the hearts and minds of those who had gathered at Ewingsdale Hall.

Samah Sabawi, Palestinian writer, political analyst, commentator, author and playwright, was the keynote speaker. Ms.Sabawi deconstructed many myths surrounding the historical narrative of a region troubled by conflict for more than six decades. She graphically detailed the dispossession of Palestinian people from their lands from 1948 onwards imperilled by the Zionist occupation of Palestine which led to the expulsion of over 250,000 Palestinian people and the ethnic cleansing of 425 villages. ‘Palestine was wiped off the map and our people were literally thrown into the sea’, said Samah.

More Palestinian lands were annexed during the six day war of 1967. Ms Sabawi pointed out that UN Resolution 242 requires Israel to withdraw from the annexed lands, but ‘Israel was not interested then and is not interested now. Indeed, Israel is the only state that refuses to declare where it’s borders are’, she said.

She went on to say that any talk of a two state solution is made complicated by the continuing illegal expansion of Israeli settlements. ‘Today, over half a million settlers live in the occupied lands, with a matrix of apartheid walls and 570 checkpoints.’

The main theme of her presentation centred around the human rights based approach manifest in Palestinian civil society’s call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against apartheid Israel. The three key demands of BDS were: an end to the 1967 occupation; an end to the system of apartheid; and a recognition of the right of return of refugees, as stipulated in UN Resolution 194.

Quoting from Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela, Ms Sabawi presented a convincing argument for the moral validity of the BDS movement saying ‘moral right over military might’.

In addition, Omar Barghouti’s video presentation explored the international legal basis for the boycott call, its precedents and core elements of freedom, justice and equality. ‘Any self-respecting liberal should be able to support this’ said Mr Barghouti.

Mr Bargouti also said: ‘Palestinian peaceful resistance inspired the Arab Spring, which in turn inspired the Occupy Movement. That’s why we say: Occupy Wall St., Not Palestine’.

Both Ms Sabawi and Mr Bargouti applauded the decisions of the United Methodist Church and Presbyterian Church in the US to divest from American companies profiting from the occupation. Mr Bargouti also pointed out that the BDS movement was still young, that it took over 30 years for the anti-apartheid movement against South Africa to make an impact. He also mentioned that many Jewish groups, both within Israel and outside, supported BDS, including Jewish Voice for Peace, which has over 110,000 members.

While economic boycott was important, so were academic and cultural boycott of apartheid Israel, with a growing list of luminaries adding their support, including Alice Walker, Angela Davis, Naomi Klein, Roger Waters of Pink Floyd, Gill Scott Herron and Snoop Dog.

Byron Greens Councillor Tom Tabart was also present, promising to bring up the BDS issue for discussion with his party. So was Marika Kontellis, Greens Councillor from Marrickville City Council. Marrickville Council voted to support BDS, but had to recant after a firestorm of protest in the media, much of it orchestrated by the Murdoch press. Said Marika: ‘ There was no fuss when we boycotted Burma and raised the East Timor flag, but this was evidently different.’ She called for an awareness raising campaign in solidarity with Palestine.

The evening ended with some heart-wrenching verse by Ms Sabawi. Phil Monsour, Australian-Palestinian troubadour, sang ‘Our day is surely coming’, while on the screen we saw people who had the names of the villages they were displaced from written in the palm of their hands."

Show us yours, Duncan!

Duncan then provides a link to what products BDSers should avoid.

The poster I reproduce above should prove helpful to him and his cohorts. For other tips, Duncan (should you see this) have a look at the BDS Starter Kit here

Hat tip: Aussie blogger geoffff, who has more about this here

Friday, 3 August 2012

"Like Blowflies At A Barcaldine Barbeque": BDSers Blight Byron Bay

"In the Tweed and Byron Shires there are a lot of Greens," a pro-Israel activist not unfamiliar to readers of comments on my blog observed elsewhere some time ago.

"They are everywhere. They are like blowflies at a Barcaldine barbeque."

Remarked another:

"It’s a well known fact that the ferals of Byron Bay are the worst example of the loony left Greens in the country. "

And so it is that the New South Wales beach resort of Byron Bay will soon, thanks to Byron Friends of Palestine, find itself hosting an anti-Israel hate-fest in the form of a BDS Conference, addressed by Palestinian writer Samah Sabawi, Omar Barghouti via video link, and a local councillor (who lists his hobbies as "indoctrination" of his young granddaughter) representing the Greens.

Explains the blurb, in part:

"The inaugural Byron Bay BDS Conference is timed to coincide with the anniversary of the formal adoption of the Geneva conventions on Sunday 12th August 2012.

This conference is a not for profit event aimed at promoting awareness of the moral justification for Palestinian civil society’s call for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel due to her government’s continued breach of international law, covenants and UN resolutions....

This conference is intended also to provide a platform for members of our local community to engage in a question and answer session which will include Tom Tabart as a representative of the Greens. The Australian political climate, its relationship to Palestinian aspirations and Australian government policy regarding Palestinian sovereignty are all subjects that can be explored and discussed. It is hoped that much of the truth about this conflict and the potential of the non-violent methods chosen to end it will become more apparent by the end of this session.

Despite a carefully contrived atmosphere of Islamophobia in the mainstream media we must pause to consider the cultural and scientific gifts to the West from the Arab world: Music, poetry, mathematics, astronomy, sacred geometry, ceramics, weaving and architecture and not least the preservation and revival of ancient Greek philosophy suppressed in the West for centuries.

With that cultural element in mind, the conference will come to a close with a spoken word poetry reading by Samah Sabawi followed by a solo set of music by world renowned Palestinian/australian musician Phil Monsour who recently returned from a tour of Europe and the UK."

Read more here

Below, incidentally, is how Monsour recently wowed Israel-haters in Ireland:

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'For as long as these antisemites wrap themselves up in the Palestinian flag, too many people are willing to turn a blind eye. Only against Jews is this type of racism openly tolerated. It is flourishing in schools, colleges, universities, unions and in city councils. In fact, so rampant is the disease now, in some settings you can be ostracised if you do not partake in the frenzy yourself. Bashing Jews has becomes a trendy position for the ignorant social justice warrior. "Palestinianism" is a viral "ponzi scheme" and as it spreads, it carries antisemitism in the undergrowth.' David Collier (2017)

'This new rise in antisemitism, which I had thought long dead, was not shaven-headed white imbeciles from the far right. It was Muslims, a large chunk of it.... Suddenly I grasped that the British far left didn’t want people to know about antisemitism because it pointed the finger at people they really, really liked. From that moment on, it all fell into place.... Time and again the same tropes emerged, the same sort of stuff that Streicher and Goebbels would have commended – and uttered.... And from that a whole bunch of other stuff emerged: the old blood libel business (a favourite of the repulsive Jenny Tonge).... Nice, avuncular, Jeremy Corbyn, with his peace badges, happily laying a wreath at the graveside of Palestinian terrorists who murdered innocent Jewish athletes, oh, and much much more.... It is the same antisemitism, exactly the same: the obsession with Israel to the exclusion of everything else, the conspiracy theory paranoias, the derangement.... Here’s the test – if you cannot see the flagrant racism in the BDS movement, and if you are obsessed with the perfidy of the Middle East’s only democracy to the exclusion of all else, you are an antisemite. That means a good proportion of the Labour Party, including the leader, and almost all of Momentum: no brown shirts, no marching bands, but the same old filth, dressed in the clothes of a polytechnic geography lecturer.'
Rod Liddle (2018)

'Before the June 1967 Six Day War, there were no such things as "settlements". Palestinians were trying to destroy and displace Israel anyhow. The core problem is not, and never was, "settlements," but the right of Israel (or any non-Muslim nation) to exist inside any borders in that part of the world.
If you take a stand that is based on a lie, then that stand cannot succeed. If you try to oppose antisemitism but pretend it is the same thing as "Islamophobia," then the structure on which you have made your stand will totter and all your aspirations will fail. If you try to make a stand based on the idea that settlement construction rather than the intransigence of the Palestinians to the existence of a Jewish state is what is holding up a peace deal, then facts will keep on intruding.' Douglas Murray (31 December 2016)
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/9685/britain-little-lies

'Islamophobia does NOT come from the same wellspring of hatred as antisemitism. Antisemitism is a true prejudice because the hatred and demonisation it promotes derive entirely from lies and a repudiation of rationality itself.
Islamophobia is a false allegation of prejudice which is deployed to silence rational criticism based on actual facts about attitudes and practices within the Islamic world.
[L]ethally compromised even-handedness is to misunderstand, and thus minimise, antisemitic attitudes and behaviour while shutting down legitimate and necessary discussion of the threat from the Islamic world – even to demonise as “Islamophobic” anyone who draws attention to the extent and consequences of Muslim antisemitism.' Melanie Phillips (14 December 2016)

Jews have re-assumed the role of the canary in the mine and are the first to be targeted, but the world would face the same threat if Jews did not exist. Israel has been at the front lines confronting Islamic extremism but has received scant support... For Jews, the writing has been on the wall for a long time. The virulence of the antisemitic hatred closing in on Jews in Europe (and elsewhere) is horrifying...
Europe is today facing a crisis as serious as the confrontation with Nazism. If Western leaders continue behaving like Chamberlain and fail to stand up to this global threat, it could usher in a new Dark Age in which the Judeo-Christian culture is subsumed by primitive barbarism. The writing is on the wall Isi Leibler (12 January 2015)

Expose The Lies!

There is a war of lies and deceit on the internet generating unbelievable hate by denigrating and delegitimising the legal rights conferred on the Jewish people by the League of Nations in 1922 and the United Nations in 1945. The idea that there are two narratives on the Arab-Jewish conflict is rubbish. There is only one – the factual truth that details the return of the Jewish people to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in its ancient biblical, ancestral and historic homeland after 3500 years of dispersion with the unanimous endorsement of the nation states then comprising the League of Nations.... Generals can’t fight a war without soldiers. Jews around the world need to join the fight or vacate the internet to the Jew-haters and their lies that repeated often enough eventually become accepted as truth. David Singer (2016)

The "Apartheid" Slur

The division of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) into three separate areas “A”, “B” and “C” was agreed on by Israel and the PLO pursuant to the Oslo Accords.
95% of the West Bank Arabs live in Areas A and B and their daily lives are under the total administration and control of the PLO since the Palestinian Authority was disbanded by Abbas in January 2013. The PLO has total security control in A and shares security control in B with Israel. Israel has total administrative and security control in C.
Israel is entitled to and will continue to take responsibility for the security of Jews living in the West Bank.
Jews were given the legal right to settle in the West Bank under article 6 of the Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the UN Charter. They did so for decades until they were driven out in 1947 and not able to return there until 1967.
There are Arab roads only in the West Bank that Jews are not allowed to use. Jews are also forbidden from entering Area “A”. Selling land to Jews is forbidden by the PLO under pain of death. The PLO runs the daily lives of 95% of the West Bank Arabs and Hamas runs the daily lives of 100% of the Gazan Arabs. They have been under occupation – and subjugation – by these two evil groups for the last ten years and given no say in their future or any opportunity to elect others to lead them following the disastrous political decisions of their leaders over the past ten years. Hamas and the PLO do not accept the continued existence of a Jewish State and call for its disappearance.
The narratives did not begin in 1948 – they began in about 1917. How do you make peace with an enemy that has been obsessed with not recognising any Jewish national rights in former Palestine for the last 100 years? David Singer (2016)

The Jews of the Holy Land ... are surrounded by hostile states 650 times their territory and sixty times their population. Yet their last, best hope of ending two millennia of international persecution - the State of Israel - has somehow survived. When, during the Second World War, the island of Malta came through three terrible years of bombardment and destruction, it was rightly awarded the George Cross for bravery. Today, Israel should be awarded a similar decoration for defending democracy, tolerance and Western values against a murderous onslaught that has lasted twenty times as long. Andrew Roberts (historian)

Israel is understandably obsessed with security, but its greatest security lies ultimately not in the Israeli Defence Forces, but in political warfare.... Most of the world is not deeply interested in what happens in Israel, and probably does not want to be deluged with legalistic defences of particular actions. What it wants is a clear, calm, repeated case. It is a case – aimed more at public opinion than at foreign ministries – about freedom, democracy, a Western way of life and the need for the whole of the free world to fight terrorism. Sometimes you hear Israelis say: “It doesn’t matter what we say. The whole world is against us.” You can see why they say it, for they are indeed unfairly treated. But when they say it, they are uttering a self-fulfilling prophecy. If they won’t say what needs saying, no one else will say it for them. Charles Moore (2010)

Once again the armies of the Arab nations are coordinating their military efforts to destroy Israel - whatever they say about wishing merely to regain the lost territories.... [I]f the present Arab offensive had been launched at the pre-1967 frontiers, then the Israelis would indeed have been fighting to avoid annihilation. It seems now that the Israelis were right to maintain the ceasefire lines gained in 1967, and that to do so is the only guarantee of their continued safety.
Alan Sillitoe (The Times, 11 October 1973)

Iran and ISIS are competing for the crown of militant Islam... In this deadly game of thrones, there’s no place for America or for Israel, no place for Christians, Jews or Muslims who don’t share the Islamist medieval creed, no rights for women, no freedom for anyone... [T]he greatest danger facing our world is the marriage of militant Islam with nuclear weapons. To defeat ISIS and let Iran get nuclear weapons would be to win the battle, but lose the war. We can’t let that happen...[T]he days when the Jewish people remained passive in the face of genocidal enemies, those days are over. We are no longer scattered among the nations, powerless to defend ourselves. We restored our sovereignty in our ancient home. And the soldiers who defend our home have boundless courage. For the first time in 100 generations, we, the Jewish people, can defend ourselves....Even if Israel has to stand alone, Israel will stand. But ... I know that America stands with Israel... You stand with Israel, because you know that the story of Israel is not only the story of the Jewish people but of the human spirit that refuses again and again to succumb to history’s horrors. Bibi Netanyahu (12 Adar 5775; 3 March 2015)

The Jews are a peculiar people: things permitted to other nations are forbidden to the Jews. Other nations drive out thousands, even millions, of people, and there is no refugee problem.... [N]o one says a word about refugees. But in the case of Israel displaced Arabs have become eternal refugees.... Other nations - when they are defeated - survive and recover, but should Israel be defeated it would be destroyed.... [A]s it goes with Israel, so it will go with all of us. Should Israel perish the holocaust will be upon us. Eric Hoffer (1968)

Most of the present Arab countries were given their freedom after the 1914-18 War, or after the 1939-45 War.... Yet to listen to Arab spokesmen one might think that they had been cheated ... because they have not also got Israel. Israel is only .2 per cent of the land where Arab States have been established. Surely no fair-minded man can begrudge the Jews their own promised land when it is remembered that for every 2 acres that went to make up Israel, 1,000 acres became Arab.... Why is there an Arab refugee problem? The oil-rich countries have the money. There is no shortage of land, and the Israelis have the technical knowledge to show how it could be developed and made fertile. Bring those things together and the problem could be solved. 3rd Earl of Balfour (1968)

January 7, 2015 has already its place in the history of infamy, but also will be the date when the defenders of freedom and democracy will rise and pay tribute to those who died for their freedom and ours. Therefore, we must not forget on which side we are and who are our allies in the defense of the West and its values. Whether we admit it or not, the West is at war with an enemy who will not stop to destroy us...
The State of Israel boasts a commandment that, in one of the darkest hours in the fight for liberty Winston Churchill taught: "Never give up". Israel has proven to be a key ally in the fight against Islamism and also an example of how a liberal democracy can resist the jihadist stake and thrive as a Western nation ... Not only France but also all the West should look to Israel to defeat Islamism...
friendsofisraelinitiative.org

[I]t’s impossible to believe that an active antisemite wouldn’t – if only opportunistically – seek out somewhere to nestle in the manifold pleats of Israel-bashing, whether in generally diffuse anti-Zionism, or in more specific Boycott and Divestment Campaigns, Israeli Apartheid Weeks, End the Occupation movements and the like....[T]ell me that not a single Jew-hater finds the activity congenial, that criticising Israel can “never” be an expression of Jew-hating, not even when it takes the form of accusing Israeli soldiers of harvesting organs... Howard Jacobson (The Independent, 27 May 2013)

For Western countries to side with those who question Israel's legitimacy, for them to play games in international bodies with Israel's vital security issues, for them to appease those who oppose Western values, rather than robustly to stand up in defence of those values, is not only a grave moral mistake, but a strategic error of the first magnitude. Israel is a fundamental part of the West. The West is what it is thanks to its Judeo-Christian roots. If the Jewish element of those roots is lost and Israel is lost, then we are lost too. Jose Maria Aznar

Israel is, for us, a normal and a special country. A normal country, because it is just like any other democracy. A special country, because the Jewish culture, which eventually became the Judeo-Christian culture of the dignity of man, is the conceptual foundation of liberalism and democracy. This is why attacking Israel is tantamount to attacking Europe and the West. This is also why disputing Israel's legitimacy and its right to existence means questioning democracy. And this is why we are Friends of Israel. By defending Israel, we are defending ourselves. Marcello Pera

Israel ... is beset today by a unique combination of threats. It must defend its people from attack while defending its very right to exist. No other nation in the world faces this dual challenge. To deny Israel's right to confront some of the world's most vicious terrorist groups in order to ensure the safety of its citizens is to corrode international norms from within ... The assault on Israel is one part of a more general assault on the West, on democracy, and on the moral and cultural heritage that grew from the fruitful interaction of Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome ... Should these efforts succeed, similar efforts will certainly be turned against other western democracies. George Weigel

Apart from America itself, Israel still stands as the world's brightest model of national self-liberation based on ideals of individual responsibility and human freedom. Israel's ability to withstand Arab attempts to destroy it in one of the longest and most lop-sided wars ever fought serves as an indelible testimony to the strength of democratic culture.... We know from the past that the West paid dearly for ignoring Hitler's war against the Jews. One can only hope it will not pay as dearly for having ignored or underestimated for so long the Arab war against Israel and the Jews. Ruth Wisse

I am duty-bound to defend freedom, culture, peaceful coexistence, the civic education of children, and all the principles that the Tablets of the Law have rendered universal. Principles which Islamic fundamentalism systematically destroys. This means that, since I am a Gentile, a journalist and a leftist, I have a triple moral commitment to Israel. Because, if Israel were to be vanquished, modernity, culture and freedom would also be crushed. Even though the world has failed to wake up to this fact, Israel's struggle is the world's struggle. Pilar Rahola

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