Sizer, Najar, & Two Anglican Prelates Called George

On Stephen Sizer's Facebook page, beneath a post of his linking to this Guardian report, eyebrow-raising posts by a Michigan-based "friend" of his, Linda Najar:

And on Najar's own Facebook page, such current uglies as these:

Is the ex-vicar of Virginia Water, now CEO of the so-called Peacemakers Trust, really happy to have Facebook friends such as she?  If he is not, he should demonstrate his disapproval by de-friending such people forthwith. 

Former Archbishop of Canterbury Dr George Carey, now a life peer, is seen below asserting, in  an interview on i24NEWS with video anti-antisemitism campaigner and Middle East analyst Jonathan Sacerdoti, a few home truths on Holocaust Memorial Day:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5E8Xx58zq68

Inter alia, to quote the uploader:

'.... Lord Carey of Clifton told i24NEWS on Sunday that 'Christians are to blame as well' for high-levels of anti-Semitism in the UK, which he suggested was linked to the one-sided narratives many received on pilgrimages to Israel and the West Bank. 'What I think we need to do is to better educate Christians who go on these pilgrimages to see this as not the total story,' Lord Carey said, urging the thousands attending such religious trips to prominent and widely-contested holy sites in the region to seek the entire picture with regards to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Many of the religious sites such as Jesus’ birthplace in Bethlehem and the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron are located in the West Bank, often flashpoint and conflict-centric areas. 'What they don’t realize is what is happening to the Jewish communities in their own land who are sidelined and in a way persecuted by Palestinians. You’ve got to get a much more balanced view of what’s going on,' he continued. 'I think of Israel as a wonderful, sophisticated, democratic society surrounded by undemocratic nations. I mean we must support one another,' he said, emphasizing shared the Judeo-Christian heritage. 'Christians owe so much to the Jewish scriptures and Jewish history, so we stand as one,' the former top church leader added. Lord Carey of Clifton has often spoken out publicly against anti-Semitism in the church and across the UK. 'It’s not going to cost my life, it’s not going to cost my future, and this is what Jews fear, you know, the persecution, indirect persecution,' he asserted, referring to the detrimental impact anti-Semitism can often have on daily life. 'Think of Jewish children walking to school with armed guards, guards outside synagogues — in an advanced civilization such as ours, this is quite deplorable,' he told i24NEWS'

On the other side of the world, meanwhile, here's George Browning, former Anglican Bishop of Canberra and Goulburn, who's president of the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network (APAN), warming the hearts of supersecessionists everywhere, and (in a passage not quoted by me in the excerpt below) giving the nod to Stephen Sizer, with no mention of that gentleman's dodgy postings and dodgy associations over the years:

'Christian Zionism does not support Israel for Israel’s sake, but because ‘believers’ have been led to understand the Bible teaches Israeli sovereignty from the Nile to the Euphrates will herald the end of the world and trigger the ‘rapture’, when Jesus will come again and establish his Kingdom – from Jerusalem. So important is the acquisition of land to this cult like ideology that Zionists resist ‘land for peace’ or the unfolding of a peace process that would ultimately see the establishment of a Palestinian state.

It should not simply be left to secularists to describe this for what it is – absurd, dangerous, nonsense .... Tiptoeing around is to condone cruel apartheid for Palestinians who, through accident of birth and heredity, inconveniently stand in the way of these delusional ambitions, cloaked as they may be in saccharine piety. Tiptoeing around is not simply to support Israel in its overtly apartheid system of colonisation, it is also to turn a blind eye to the reality that Saudi Arabia has been the cradle from which terrorism has sprung, while the demonization of Iran leaves it dangerously outside the checks and balances that come with being part of an international community of trade and diplomacy.

Just as Christian Zionism’s concern for Israel resides in a very different priority; similarly, US Middle Eastern politics is driven not by events in the Middle East, but by US domestic politics and the base from which Donald Trump relies on for support – the Evangelical Christian right. We are confronted with utter hypocrisy and disdain for truth on every corner. It is very unlikely that Donald Trump believes the nonsense of the Christian Zionist position, but being their champion keeps him in the White House. (By contrast the very honourable John McCain refused to accept endorsement from this quarter). It is almost incomprehensible that Christians of any description could condone Trump’s deceitfulness, self-aggrandisement, and appalling behaviour, particularly to women, and yet none of this seems to matter to the Christian right, as long as he supports their agenda.

[Emphasis asdded; the irony of citing Trump's alleged misogyny, while turning a blind eye to the appalling reality of Islamic subjugation of women, not least in Iran, will surely not be lost on readers!]

.... So, what of Australia? How many Christians are motivated by a Zionist ideology is very hard to know. What motivates [Liberal federal politician] Eric Abetz to demonise Palestinians and unconditionally laud the state of Israel? Only he could answer. His public statements following the Labor Party motion to make the recognition of Palestine a priority indicate either he has callous disregard for Palestinian suffering at the hands of the occupation and settlement program, or that he chooses to block this reality from his mind. He continues to insist that Palestine refuses to accept the right of Israel to exist even though since the Oslo accord more than 20 years ago Palestinians have accepted a territorial divide based on 1967 borders. Further he refuses to acknowledge that the boot is on the other foot, most ministers in the Netanyahu government have said they will never allow a Palestinian state.

South African apartheid enjoyed the imprimatur of conservative Christians based on spurious interpretation and application of biblical text. To be doing the same in the land of Jesus who revealed that in God there are no boundaries, no divisions; common or shared humanity is more important than tribal, ethnic or religious identity; is to deny the very foundations of Christianity itself.'

What a ripper of an article, by contrast, and on the ABC site no less, by co-CEO of the Executive Australian Jewry Peter Wertheim, who having ably described Australia's support for Jewish statehood at the UN General Assembly in 1949, remarks:

 'If [the Australian] Labor [Party, which at its conference last month voted to recognise a Palestinian state on assuming office] today were to apply the same criteria to recognition of a Palestinian state that it applied to recognition of Israel, "Palestine" would fail on all of them. In particular, due to the schism within the Palestinian national movement, there is no Palestinian entity that exercises "control of all forms of administration within specified areas" that comprise the territory claimed by the Palestinians ― namely, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

The internal divide between the secular nationalist movement among Palestinians, represented by the PLO and Palestinian Authority (PA) which controls parts of the West Bank, and the theocratic movement, represented by Hamas which controls the Gaza Strip, has resulted in internecine violence on many occasions. They are at odds over the most basic questions, not only concerning peace with Israel and other policy issues, but also on the essential nature of a future Palestinian State, and the basic rules by which it will be governed.

Hamas refuses to relinquish its arms to the PA and to place its operatives under the PA's command. The PA is too weak to force Hamas to do so. The Palestinians have never had their "Altalena" moment.

So for reasons which are entirely internal to Palestinian society, there is no reasonable prospect for the foreseeable future of any government being formed which would exercise effective control over both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and possess the capacity to give effect to any agreements signed by "Palestine" ― including any peace treaty that might be negotiated with Israel.

Recognising a Palestinian state in these circumstances would therefore not help to end the conflict with Israel, but would almost certainly inaugurate a new and bloodier phase of that conflict, at the likely cost of many more lives than the conflict has claimed thus far.'

Shaming The "Apartheid" Smear

Outside the Curzon Cinema in London's Soho on Friday night, a little squad of Israel-haters from the Islamic group Inminds protests the cinema's hosting of an Israeli film show held under the auspices of  the Israeli Embassy.  

There's no Sandra Watfa this time to lead the demonisation of the little Jewish State; instead, there's some chap with a suspicion of a Scottish accent.

Nor are there any flag-waving Zionist activists on hand, although things suddenly get noisy when raucous chants of "Free Palestine!" are met by booming cries of "Shame on you!" from a pro-Israel couple who proceed (with what aim in view is unclear) to summon a waiting Mr Plod.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igKdsKH3O2Y

(A MrAlexSeymour video)

Allegations that Israel is an apartheid state, like those comparisons to South Africa under white minority rule recently made by former Foreign Office diplomat  Craig Murray, have been ably dissected by Israeli journalist and commentatorYisrael Medad, who writes in a brand-new article that can be read in its entirety here:

'Quite plainly, language in the discourse is being corrupted and definitions are being eviscerated. Moreover, the object of this exercise is to demonize Israel and Zionism, poison minds and attempt to disenable any defender of Israel and Jewish nationalism from responding by literally dictating the conversation to the total disadvantage of a pro-Israel stance. And tax-exempt donations to the New Israel Fund monetize this language.

In essence, we need acknowledge that nothing has really changed from the beginning of the attacks on Zionism in the mass media led by Lords Northcliffe, Rothermere and Beaverbrook in the early 1920s and the targeting of Jews as Jews, which allows anti-Semitism a free ride. As [British historian]David Cesarani put it in 1989, is anti-Zionism motivated by principled objections to Zionism and sympathy for the Palestinian Arabs, or more due to hostility to the Jews or that their antipathy to Zionism is based on prejudices regarding Jewish behavior?

Zionism’s opponents elasticize language. They stretch terms that properly belong in one sphere of activity or thought and seek to apply it, unfairly and incorrectly, to what is happening in Israel. There’s even the trick called “Holocaust inversion,” for example. When I first became involved in hasbara efforts in 1964, one of the favorite ploys was “we can’t be anti-Semitic for we are Arabs and Arabs are Semitic.”

Today, from Carter on down, “apartheid,” which indicates a complete separation based on race is now applied to Israel, as if there are two sets of toilets and water fountains. Or that T’rua handout I quoted from above reads “Green Line: Israel’s internationally recognized border” when the actual ceasefire agreement states

Article VI 9. The Armistice Demarcation Lines defined in articles V and VI of this Agreement are agreed upon by the Parties without prejudice to future territorial settlements or boundary lines or to claims of either Party relating thereto.

Or in other words, the Green Line was quite definitely not Israel’s internationally recognized border. In fact, the word “border” appears but once and as a future issue Israel could raise, an issue of “border rectification.” The exact term used in the agreement is “Armistice Demarcation Lines.” Language is artificially stretched, elasticized and the intent of the newly defined term becomes a weaponized semantic.

As for “colonialism,” what is it that Arabs did in the seventh century if not conquer a country not theirs, occupy it and then colonize it? Who “occupied Palestine,” or rather, the area the international community set aside for the establishment of an Arab Palestine state, if not Jordan, an act the international community basically ignored because Jews were not involved? Where is the actual apartheid practiced, if not within the confines of the Haram A-Sharif on the Temple Mount, where Jews cannot even drink water from the fountains there—not to mention pray or even just read from the Bible?

For all these examples and many more, there are no words to describe the deviousness in subverting historical truth and current events. Opponents of Israel and Zionism abscond with the rhetoric, and not only fashion a made-up narrative but create a new language in which to argue the Arab conflict with Israel. Their elasticizing of semantics is stretching the truth.'  [Emphasis added]

Meanwhile, in America the Sojourners organisation's magazine staff gets a dose of anti-Israel propaganda from "apartheid state" demoniser Stephen Sizer during his recent visit stateside:

"Israel is a Jewish and Democratic State"

An articulate rejection of the Apartheid smear:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78E7m8k9G18

 

Islamic/Leftist Antisemitism, BDS, and the "Apartheid" slur : A British Muslim speaks out (video)

This 15-minute J-TV  video comprises a wonderful tribute to Israel by the wonderful Dr Qanta Ahmed (in conversation with Dr Alan Mendoza), speaking from the heart and from experience about BDS (incidentally, there's a compelling new article here  showing why BDS is antisemitic), the "Apartheid" slur, and Islamist/Leftist antisemitism.

A must-watch from a channel that has produced a number of excellent videos (check it out):

"Ask Them if They've Ever Seen a Picture of Israelis - in colour" (video)

No prizes for guessing who this question is posed to!

This fanatical Irish activist for a start!

Video bonus: The man who might be London's mayor in a few hours:

And Pat Condell on who he won't vote for (yes, the anti-Israel brigade gets a look-in!):

Hat tip: Ian

"The World Has Hallucinated A Sabre-Toothed Tiger": Maureen Lipman on Israel-hatred

Here's the warm, witty and wonderful British actress Maureen Lipman speaking succinctly about the need for Jews to speak up on behalf of the traduced and heroic little nation that the BDSers love to hate:

And here's the eloquent Israeli Arab diplomat George Deek, speaking for half an hour before a pro-Israel London audience last week:

(StandWithUs videos)

Is Israel Really An Apartheid State? (video)

Here's an interesting video newly posted to YouTube:

According to a poll published this week:

An impressive vote of confidence in the "Apartheid State", eh?

Maureen's Message To Miliband

www.telegraph.co.uk

What a great lady British actress Maureen Lipman is.  Known for her gifts as an actress and writer, the widow of much-acclaimed playwright Jack Rosenthal well deserves her epithet "a British national treasure".

While a bevy of other star thespians, including Miriam Margolyes, Juliet Stephenson, Emma Thompson, and Harriet Walter, to note only examples from the pro-cultural boycott distaff side of Britain's theatreland, are among Israel's trenchant critics, Ms Lipman outdazzles them all with her steadfast support of the beleaguered, traduced, and heroic little country.

Now, writing in the conservative intellectual monthly Standpoint, she tells Labour leader "Red Ed" Milibank, who placed a three-line whip on his members during the recent Commons debate and vote on whether Britain should recognise a Palestinian state, why she's abandoning, at least for the foreseeable future, her decades-long attachment to the Labour Party.

www.telegraph.co.uk

She writes in part:

'Just when ... anti-Semitism ... is mounting savagely...  Just when the virulence against a country defending itself, against 4,000 rockets and 32 tunnels inside its borders, as it has every right to do under the Geneva Convention, had been swept aside by the real pestilence of IS, in steps Mr Miliband to demand that the government recognise the state of Palestine alongside the state of Israel.  

.... Many people on the Left and the Right would like to see a two-state solution if it means peace and mutual respect. I am one of them. Any future Palestinian state will be entirely free of Jews, of course. Yet the Jewish state is labelled "apartheid" with 1.7 million Arabs in residence and represented in parliament.

(1) It is a historical fact that the Arab states refused such an offer in 1937, 1948, 2000 and 2008. They have yet to accept Israel's right to exist and their constitutions and broadcasts to this day extol its destruction. 

(2) How can you recognise a state until its borders are decided?

(3) If you recognise a state you can officially arm that state. Already billions of pounds have been allotted to rebuild Gaza. Ha! Rebuild the tunnels and reequip the arsenal. Oh, how the propaganda has worked on these clever, concerned people again and again and again. If Hamas and Fatah cared one iota for the Palestinians, might they not have built schools and hospitals and streets for their people the first time the billions poured in and were converted into weaponry and hotel suites in Paris and citizens were used as human shields?...

....May I remind you that no one is tunnelling into Dover or sending rockets into Coventry, yet we seem to have every right to bomb the living daylights out of Iraq. Again. Conclusion: one law for the Israelis, another law for the rest of the world. ....'

Read the entire piece here

In Melbourne, Israel-Haters Erect A Poster

Courtesy of "Australians for Palestine", this poster, due to stay for a month, now stares out from a billboard at the corner of City Road and Queensbridge Street just before the Kingsway overpass.

So much for communal harmony in "the world's most liveable city".

So much for truth.

Below: the demonising message close up and personal

“We’re Here As Black People To Dispute The Lie That Israel Is An Apartheid State” (video)

At a time when blood libels against the IDF and gross slurs against Israel such as the "apartheid state" canard are spreading like malignant growths, how good it is to see black faces at the recent huge rally pro-Israel rally in Johannesburg, including Kenneth Meshoe, whom we've met before:

'[The] president of the African Christian Democratic Party, Kenneth Meshoe, summed up why his party attended the rally and what the rally stood for, saying: “We’re here as black people to dispute the lie that Israel is an apartheid state,” he said.

Meshoe condemned Hamas’s call for “annihilation,” stating that Israel had a right to exist within safe and secure borders. He also emphatically maintained that Israel had the right to defend itself and berated those who thought otherwise. “If people throw stones at your house, what will you do?” he asked. “There was more than a week of Hamas firing rockets before Israel fired back,” Meshoe said.

Furthermore, Meshoe called on the international community to instruct Hamas to stop using women and children as human shields.

These sentiments were reflected on the numerous placards held by members of the crowd. While Bishop Nkosi Phakama Shembe and other members of the Shembe church danced on stage the crowd waved posters that read: “Free Gaza from Hamas,” “Israel we stand with you” and “Israel wants peace, Hamas wants war”.

The SAZF expressed their satisfaction with the number of people who attended the rally. Vice chairperson of the organisation Ben Swartz called it an “unprecedented gathering”. “Never before in South Africa have there been so many people in solidarity with Israel,” he added.

 Read more here

"In Reality, Israel Is The Only Middle Eastern Entity That Is Not An Apartheid Regime"

In New York on 7 July, a participant in an anti-Israel rally proclaims her reason for supporting BDS.

It is as we know a commonly-expressed justification by BDSers for their hatred of and targeting of the tiny Jewish State, and it's based on a false premise, of course, depending for its origin and its circulation on the construction and consumption of a Big Lie.

The latest well-informed person in a position to be able to show it up for what it is does so in a substantial, scholarly, closely argued, fully footnoted article.

He's Steven Plaut, an academic in the Graduate School of Management at the University of Haifa, and his article is entitled "The Myth of Ethnic Inequality in Israel".

Here's a taste:

'It is commonplace to attribute much of Israel's domestic tensions to supposed Jewish discrimination against the country's Arab citizens. Nearly every Israeli Arab nongovernmental organization insists that such discrimination characterizes the Jewish state in general and its labor markets in particular. The Israeli media routinely interview Israeli Arabs (and non-Ashkenazi Jews) who claim to have been victims of discrimination. These allegations are echoed by Jewish Israeli academics, think tanks, and journalists, especially on the political Left, not to mention the international anti-Israel movement and the boycott, divestment, and sanctions campaign. Indeed, the U.S. Department of State has even joined the growing outcry concerning Israel's alleged racist discrimination against its Arab citizens. 

 Of course, in reality, Israel is the only Middle Eastern entity that is not an apartheid regime, and the apartheid slander holds no water whatsoever save in the minds of the Jewish state's enemies and defamers. Yet discrimination is a scientifically empirical question subject to testing and not a matter of subjective personal opinion. Stripping away the venomous anti-Israel rhetoric, the legitimate question remains whether and how much discrimination really exists in Israel....

 The most surprising conclusion from the econometric analysis of ethnic earnings disparities in Israel is how many of the stereotypical characterizations of Israel turn out to be false. Ethnicity in Israel simply does not play a large role in the labor market, in contrast with gender or schooling.

 While it is widely presumed that the Arab minority underperforms in the labor market of the Jewish state, either because of discrimination or other structural or cultural disadvantages, this turns out not to be so. That accusation is central to the claim that Israel is some sort of apartheid regime....

 The problem is not just in the media. The academic careers of many in Israel, particularly in sociology, have been constructed entirely upon unsubstantiated allegations of Israeli racism. Israeli sociologists in general tend to accept at face value the notion that any documented disparity in earnings or numerical representation between Israeli Jews and Arabs must be due to discrimination. Perhaps the most notorious example is that of Yehouda Shenhav, a sociologist at Tel Aviv University. Shenhav is father of the notion that "Oriental Jews" are in fact "Arabs of the Mosaic faith," and together with Arabs, share a victimhood imposed upon them by racist Ashkenazi Zionists.  Shenhav and those of similar ideological orientation operate the Mizrahi Democratic Rainbow, dedicated to liberating "Oriental Jews" from Ashkenazi bigotry and capitalism.

In Israel's media, it is considered common knowledge that Arabs, Mizrahim, and Ethiopians are victims of harsh discrimination.The accusations of apartheid may be malicious, disingenuous, and over-the-top—or so most Israeli commentators and sociologists would agree—but the presumption of an underlying widespread pattern of discrimination is, to their minds, undeniable. The extent to which some in Israel go to manufacture evidence of discrimination can be awe-inspiring. For example, the ordinarily prestigious Israel Democracy Institute (IDI), a left-wing think tank, published a study in May 2013 that claimed to have discovered unambiguous proof of widespread discrimination in Israel against Arabs. Composed by IDI legal staffer Tanya Steiner under the supervision of Hebrew University professor Mordechai Kremnitzer, the study's evidence was the number of complaints about discrimination submitted to the Israeli Commission on Equal Opportunities in Employment. Yet while numerous complaints from women reached the commission, only 3 percent of the complaints it received were from Israeli Arabs, who represent about 18 percent of the labor force. Of these, only three of the complaints received in the entire 2011 year by the commission about alleged anti-Arab discrimination were deemed worthy of investigation. So instead of concluding that the evidence points to an absence of discrimination, the IDI's conclusion was that it all proves how badly discriminated Israeli Arabs are in Israel; after all, they are so victimized that they do not even file complaints about discrimination.

There is no evidence that points to ethnic discrimination against Israeli Arabs or Mizrahi Jews in Israeli labor markets. Recent immigrants appear to be the one group in the country at an earnings disadvantage. But it would be difficult to make a case that even their disadvantage is due to discrimination since immigrants in all societies are at a competitive disadvantage compared with natives...

The nearly complete absence of evidence of ethnic discrimination in Israeli labor markets does not, of course, preclude its existence in other markets or aspects of society. As was shown here, Arabs earn a higher return on education than Jews. But this does not rule out possible discrimination against Arabs in admissions to universities and colleges. It should be noted, however, that Israeli universities routinely implement affirmative action preferences in favor of Arabs and sometimes in favor of Mizrahim (and women). The only other documented university discrimination is that which grants some preferences to army veterans, a practice found in most countries.

There have also been allegations that Israel discriminates in its fiscal allocations and revenue sharing where Arab towns and villages are underfunded. But an empirical analysis of the question found just the opposite; if anything, the Arab local authorities were being over-funded.  Evidence regarding other alleged forms of discrimination by Israel tends to be just as skimpy. Some accusations are based upon Israel's granting automatic citizenship to Jews under its "Law of Return." But such citizenship entitlements are not unusual in the world and can be found in many other countries, such as Armenia, Greece, Bulgaria and Romania, and are guaranteed under the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.  Another indictment of Israel concerns the discriminatory nature of its military conscription. Jews and Druse are conscripted into the Israeli military while Arabs may volunteer for service but are not conscripted. Again, this practice may indeed constitute discrimination but that discrimination is against Jews, not against Arabs.

None of this proves that discrimination never exists in Israel against Arabs, against Mizrahi Jews, or anyone else. But the very fact that empirical evidence of discrimination is so hard to discern or observe must itself serve as an important warning indicator about its magnitude or lack thereof.'

Read the entire article, with its supporting footnotes plus captioned illustrations, here

"We've Done Well Under Israel; Israel Never Treated Us Badly": Palestinian Jordanian Leader Mudar Zahran (video)

Here's the eminently likeable Mr Mudar Zahran again.

In an interview in Sweden with Avner Ben Israel, Mr Zahran, the leader of the Palestinians in Jordan, prudently self-exiled for the time being owing to his harsh criticism of his country's monarch, explains how Palestinians have benefited under Israeli rule and why Israel is definitely not an apartheid state.

Also interviewed by Avner Ben Israel is David Rubin, former mayor of Shiloh: (he is interviewed first, and after Mr Zahran is interviewed the two enter into a cordial and informative discussion regarding the present and the future, including the path to peace.)

All praise to Swedish Jewish Dialogue for another illuminating video!

"The Most Risible & Incompetent Secretary of State in Living Memory": Kerry & the A word

See Congressman Ted Cruz (Republican, Texas) here in an articulate denunciation of John Kerry's use of the "Apartheid" word in relation to what, according to Kerry, Israel risks becoming; why Kerry's use that word is intolerable; why he should offer his resignation as Secretary of State; and why Obama should accept it.

On the same theme, Canadian broadcaster Michael Coren, more forthright in tone than Cruz (Coren calls Kerry "The most risible and incompetent Secretary of State in living memory") is completely on form here, in excoriating John Kerry's use of the "apartheid"word and pointing out that Kerry "owes Israel and the thinking world an apology"for using an entirely inappropriate word that plays right into the hands of Israel's leftist and Islamic enemies "for their own sordid ends".

Coren's is a must-see video that, unfortunately won't load on my blog.  I dare not attempt to embed it because, as experience has shown me, that manoevre can lead to my blog's format going awry!

The Coren video includes an interview with Professor Aurel Braun, who cogently explains at length why Kerry's remarks were unconscionable.

Amid the widespread condemnation of Kerry's remarks, the State Department has gone into damage control.

He says:

"I will not allow my commitment to Israel to be questioned by anyone, particularly for partisan, political purposes, so I want to be crystal clear about what I believe and what I don’t believe.

 First, Israel is a vibrant democracy and I do not believe, nor have I ever stated, publicly or privately, that Israel is an apartheid state or that it intends to become one.  Anyone who knows anything about me knows that without a shred of doubt.

 Second, I have been around long enough to also know the power of words to create a misimpression, even when unintentional, and if I could rewind the tape, I would have chosen a different word to describe my firm belief that the only way in the long term to have a Jewish state and two nations and two peoples living side by side in peace and security is through a two state solution."

"I Urge Jewish Students ... To Avoid Most London Colleges...; The Atmosphere is Thoroughly Toxic"

Remember my recent post here regarding the adoption of a BDS motion by the King's College London Students' Union (KCLSU)?

As reported in the campus newspaper, KCLSU's Trustee Board has since decided that it won't override the motion, and that consequently

"the motion will be published within the KCLSU Welfare and Community Zone alongside other issues on which our members have, by majority, voted."

The same source reports that the Trustee Board also decided that

''we will not use KCLSU resources to implement the ‘Resolves’ section of the motion or otherwise promote the BDS movement through the union."

 It quotes KCLSU President and Chair of the Trustee Board Sebastiaan Debrouwere thus:

"[The Board] decided that the motion as democratically approved by Student General Meeting should stand as a record of the majority view expressed on the issue, but that we should not act on the resolves, given the laws that govern us as a charity and our wider objectives as a charity..."

Cold comfort for Jewish and other pro-Israel students on a campus where for all too many anti-Israel activity seems to have become a way of life:

"As an alumnus of KCL, I wrote to the Chancellor a few months ago, expressing concern about the College - during my time there, extremist groups like Hizb-ut Tahrir set up stalls at the entrance and acted in an intimidating way, and the Jewish Society's noticeboard was routinely vandalised and defaced with anti-Semitic graffiti, including Holocaust denial. The College also has the dubious "honour" of educating a British suicide bomber, who attempted to blow up Mike's Bar in Tel Aviv (his accomplice was unfortunately successful).

The Chancellor's representative assured me that the atmosphere was now completely different and there was no problem at all.

They then invited Richard Falk, the anti-Semite at the UN, to give a speech. This time the Chancellor gave me a list of Falk's credentials, and defended the invitation.

I see nothing has changed. The College authorities, whilst not directly responsible for the shameful vote, stoke the fire and then act all surprised when it the fire spreads.

I urge Jewish students, and right minded decent young people, to avoid most London colleges - indeed, most UK campuses, and study somewhere else. The atmosphere is thoroughly toxic."

So writes a commenter named Adam on my recent post here.

 Oxford student Jonathan Hunter (if the name if familiar, it's probably because of this incident)  reflected thus on KCL's invitation to Falk:

".....This man has repeatedly violated principles at the forefront of King’s College’s own external speakers policy; especially in regard to the incitement of religious hatred. And his talk wasn’t even educational; it was filled with garbage. A moral equivocation between U.S. military action during the Second World War and Nazi genocide. A defence of what he even termed ‘inconsistency’ in singling out Israel and the U.S. for human rights abuses. After the talk, when I approached him for clarification on some his views, he basically denied outright that he was a 9/11 truther; despite being a signatory to an organisation called 9/11 Truth.

So why on earth did King’s College invite this clown? Why should King’s grant legitimacy to this complete and utter nut? And more bizarrely, how can this be a compulsory session for students?....

In essence, it boils down to that obsession with Israel which permeates nearly every academic institution. A pathological infatuation which latches onto any crank so long as he has something bad to say about Israel. It doesn’t matter if it’s a Holocaust denier like Israel Shamir – the House of Lords will warmly receive him. Nobody cares if it’s someone as offensive as George Galloway – the Oxford Union will still invite him. Who gives a damn if they’re an apologist for suicide bombers? Azzam Tamimi continues to hop from campus to campus spouting hatred...."

The toxic atmosphere which Adam cites is, of course, apparent on many campuses in the Western world, especially during the excrescence known as "Israel Apartheid Week" (see, for example, the  outbreak of antisemitic daubings at Adelaide University recently (more here) and the outrageous goings-on at Vassar, as described here.

British blogger Edgar Davidson has many interesting insights on Israel Apartheid Week here.  In that must-read post, dated 18th March, he notes, inter alia:

'A number of my friends' children have just experienced their first 'Israel Apartheid' week on campus ... and this has raised the question of how best to respond.... You should expose the person who says that as the liar and insane psychopath that they are.

The long-term objective of the ‘Israel is an apartheid state’ lie is similarly nothing less than the destruction of the Jewish state and its 6 million Jewish inhabitants. Just look at the people who are behind the lie....

  I am not talking about the thousands of naive, easily influenced (and sometimes well-meaning) university students who have fallen for the lie .... I am talking about those who started the lie and those who actively promote it.'

He goes on to say:

'For the historical record the apartheid lie was actually invented by the KGB in communist Russia as part of the Cold War – after the total defeat of the Arab armies with their Soviet equipment  in 1967.  The KGB produced all the propaganda material in the late 1960s and 1970s that was then used by radical leftists throughout the Western world. Since the fall of the Soviet Union the apartheid lie has been driven by a hard core of anti-Semites, leftist revolutionaries and Islamists – the latter of whom  come from Arab countries which practice real apartheid (those same Arab countries provide much of the funding now for the propaganda which is still based on the Soviet material). The liars’ agenda is the destruction of the State of Israel. Despite belonging to organisations with names like the ‘Palestine Solidarity Campaign’ or 'Students for Justice for Palestinians' they have no interest in the welfare of the Palestinians; this is proven by their total lack of concern for the genuinely appalling plight of Palestinians in Syria (where they are being starved and murdered) and Lebanon (where for over 65 years they have been denied rights of citizenship and are banned from most professions).  Read here about the kind of Western student organisations who promote Israel Apartheid week....'

The first source linked to by Davidson  in the paragraph above is an article by the splendidly pro-Israel Professor Alan Johnson, who is associated with BICOM.  Johnson writes:

'....The smear originated in "anti-Zionist" campaigns that were waged without let up by the Communist states during the Cold War. Seeking Arab allies, these campaigns frequently descended into antisemitism, the word "Zionist" understood by all as a fig-leaf for "Jew". Many ideas that have since spread around the world, especially amongst "progressives", began here: Zionism equals racism, Zionism equals imperialism. Israel is the USA's "watchdog" in the Middle East, Zionism is complicit with, or even promotes, antisemitism, and, of course, Zionism equals South African apartheid....

The smear got a huge boost in 1975 when a coalition between the Soviet Bloc, the authoritarian Arab states, and the so-called "Non-Aligned Movement" used its built-in majority at the UN General Assembly to pass Resolution 3379, which equated Zionism with racism. (The UN rescinded the resolution in 1991.)

The third key moment in the growth of the Apartheid Smear came in 2001 with the failure of the Camp David peace talks. This gave the smear an opening which was seized by tightly-organised, politically motivated and well-resourced group of NGOs and anti-Israel activists who hijacked the UN’s World Conference against Racism, Racial Intolerance and Xenophobia in Durban, South Africa to launch a global campaign against Israel as a "racist, apartheid state" and Israel itself as a "crime against humanity".

South Africa’s then Deputy Foreign Minister, Aziz Pahad, was appalled: "I wish to make it unequivocally clear that the SA government recognises that … [the Durban Conference] was hijacked and used by some with an anti-Israel agenda to turn into an antisemitic event."

The event was marked by hate speech. Pamphlets were circulated filled with grotesque caricatures of hook-nosed Jews depicted as Nazis, spearing Palestinian children, dripping blood from their fangs, with missiles bulging from their eyes or with pots of money nearby. In a Palestinian-led march with thousands of participants, a placard was held aloft that read ‘Hitler Should Have Finished the Job.’ Nearby, someone was selling the most notorious of anti-Jewish tracts, ‘The Protocols of the Elders of Zion’, a forgery which purports to be the minutes of a world Jewish Conspiracy, and which has been called a ‘warrant for genocide’....

 Davidson, in his post, continues:

The Arabs who promote the Apartheid lie are simply projecting the Apartheid that is rampant in their in their own countries and minds.  The Apartheid states are all Arab and Muslim: not a single practising Jew lives in Gaza or the Palestinian Authority areas (where Jews cannot even travel without facing likely murder),  Jordan and Saudi Arabia (where in both countries it is illegal to be a citizen if you are a Jew). There are just 2 remaining Jews in Iraq (where there were 300,000 as recently as 1952), 3 in Syria, 40 in Lebanon and 30 in Egypt, and less than 3000 Jews live in all of the other Arab countries combined. Yet, less than 60 years ago those Arab countries had thriving communities of Jews totally over 1,000,000.  They have all been driven out. But while every University student knows about the ‘plight of the Palestinians’ none know about the plight of Jews forcibly driven from Arab lands.

The most curiously misunderstood thing about the 'Israel Apartheid' lie is that the only people in Israel who are actually subject to legal restrictions because of their religion are the Jews. For example:

while Muslims are free to pray at any of their holy sites anywhere in Israel, Jews are banned from stepping foot on their holiest site (Temple Mount) and can only enter others (such as Rachel's tomb) at great risk under army escort. Israeli police are not even allowed to intervene when Arabs stone Jews from the Temple Mount.

    only Jews (and Druze) are legally forced to give up 3 years of their life (and then one month per year until retirement) to go in the army. Muslims have no obligation at all for any type of national service despite having full (and indeed disproportionately large) access to all national benefits.

    because all terrorism in Israel is committed by Arabs against Jews, only Jewish-owned buildings and businesses are forced to maintain costly security guards, barriers, and checks on each person entering.

 ....

No Jew can freely walk into any Muslim neighbourhood in Israel without endangering their lives. In contrast any Muslim can enter any Jewish neighbourhood without any fear at all.

    Any plans for new construction in Jewish neighbourhoods result in condemnation by the ‘international community’.  Meanwhile completely illegal construction by Muslims anywhere goes unchallenged both by the ‘international community’ and by Israel lawmakers themselves..

As Davidson observes,

'[T]here is a wealth of unimpeachable, easily accessible material that exposes every single facet of the Israel Apartheid lie (see, e.g. here, here, here, here and here)...'

And here's an excellent interview with Rabbi Marc Golub of Shalom TV,  in which a Jewish, pro-Israel academic at Stanford University, Charles Small, exposes the BDS Movement for the hypocritical, antisemitic movement it is.  Rabbi Golub had asked a pro-BDS academic at Stanford to appear with Small, but the anti-Israel academic had refused, insisting on being interviewed alone; Small pulls no punches in his interpretation of this refusal.  The interview, which took place earlier this year, is well worth listening to: it is very insightful and instructive:

BDSers Come With A Whoop & A Faux Call (video)

At Northeastern University in the United States, BDSers whoop it up with a war cry taken from Gandhi, which has also been quoted in support of BDS by aged rocker Roger Waters as well as by other elements in the BDS movement.

Unhappily for them, it seems that the famed Indian pacifist didn't, in fact, say the words attributed to him.

Professor William Jacobson's Legal Insurrection blog has the background here.

Meanwhile, outside the Chelsea Football Stadium in London on Saturday, when Chelsea played Arsenal, BDSers campaigned against "Israeli Apartheid" and Israel's inclusion in World and European football tournaments:

The above video is by hardcore anti-Israel zealot Alex Seymour ...

Ben White's Whopper Cops A Walloping

Ah! There's no one quite like the Elder of Ziyon, is there? Very little escapes his ken.

Elder discovered today that crusading British anti-Israel propagandist Ben White has been making posters in the style of Elder's own, down to the very font.  "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery", as the saying goes, so Elder was hardly miffed.

But he saw through White's ruse at once, identifying the very place in which White had found a photograph that became the basis of a poster alleging Israeli apartheid against the Palestinians.

As Elder shows here, the photo that White used accompanied an article highlighting Jordanian apartheid against Palestinians.

Look, Elder's even made a corrective poster!  That'll show the trickster!

Since graduating fron Cambridge White has, it seems, made crusading against Israel something of a full-time occupation.

He gives lectures demonising Israel on campuses at home and away, and in recent days has been marking "Israel Apartheid Week" with a series of talks at British universities.

The second edition of his notorious Israeli Apartheid: A Beginner's Guide, has just been released and, needless to say, he's busily plugging it.

Don't be fooled.

Here's part of prominent British pro-Israel activist Jonathan Hoffman's devastating review of the first edition of this odious exercise in the demonisation/delegitimisation of Israel:

'The claim that Israel is an "apartheid state'" has a long history. In December 2004, for example, there was a Conference at SOAS (London University) on this subject. It is an especially attractive comparison for the unreconstructed Left. Since the collapse of Communism twenty years ago, it has been bereft of causes. "If pressure from anti-racists such as us brought down South African apartheid" goes their argument "then we can do the same in the case of Israel."

That's where Ben White is coming from, with some anti-colonialism mixed in for good unreconstructed socialist measure. And maybe something else – this is the fellow who said "I do not consider myself an anti-Semite, yet I can also understand why some are" and who tried to contextualise comments of Ahmadinejad denote a disbelief in the Holocaust.

Of course the whole book is a Big Lie. Far from being a racist state, Israel was born from centuries of racism committed AGAINST Jews. Had Israel existed ten years sooner than 1948, hundreds of thousands of lives of those murdered in the Nazi death camps might have been saved.  [Emphasis added]

Israel's 20 percent non-Jewish minority has always had equal voting and other political rights. Arab Israelis were elected to the first Knesset in 1949 and have won as many as 12 Knesset seats in a single election. Some hold important positions in the government, court system, Ministries and the IDF. There has been an Arab Vice Consul (in San Francisco) and an Arab Minister. Contrast that with the position of blacks in South Africa under apartheid.

As in all countries there remain valid concerns about the treatment on minorities but Israeli Arabs and Palestinians have acknowledged the protection afforded them under the law, for example:

"Israel has proved that for fifty years its real power is in its democracy, guarding the rights of its citizens, applying laws [equally] to the rich and poor, the big and small." – Dr. Talal Al-Shareef, Palestinian newspaper Al-Quds, May 27, 1999

Israel rescued tens of thousands of Ethiopian Jews and welcomed them. Israel also rescued boat people from Vietnam and has been saving the lives of thousands of Sudanese refugees, including Darfuris, who escaped from Sudan through Egypt. What other Middle Eastern country has given refuge to Darfur refugees? Certainly not Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, or Saudi Arabia. Israel is the lone oasis of safety for those who are persecuted in the Middle East. 77 percent of Israeli Arabs say they prefer living in Israel to any other country in the world (Ha'aretz, 23 June 2008).

The rights of Arab citizens of Israel have been vigorously upheld in the Israeli Courts. A clear demonstration was in January 2003, with the decision of the Israeli High Court in favour of two Israeli Arab politicians, Ahmed Tibi and Azmi Bishara, who challenged the ruling of Israel's Central Election Committee (CEC) disqualifying them from running in the Israeli general election. Such an episode could never have happened in an "apartheid state". And Israel has a Communist Party whereas the Nationalists in South Africa banned it. Arabs in Israeli society get all the opportunities of Israelis. Take healthcare - the standard of healthcare available to all in Israel is far higher than in the neighbouring Arab States, and Arab life expectancy is considerably higher.

White's book comes from the same genus as Walt and Mearsheimer's The Israel Lobby. Like that book, everything is meticulously referenced but that enables the reader to see the circularity in the sources. Many are from known Israel bashers: [Ilan] Pappe, Uri Davis, Charles D. Smith, Tom Segev, Tanya Reinhart, Jeff Halper, Hussein and McKay, and Maxime Rodinson. Colin Chapman features three times: He is the author of Whose Promised Land which revives the ancient Christian canard of ‘supercessionism' - the belief that because the Jews denied the divinity of Christ, God transferred His favours to the Christians while the Jews were cast out as the party of the Devil. This doctrine lay behind centuries of Christian anti-Jewish hatred until the Holocaust drove it underground.

If the conclusions are a Big Lie, it follows that the arguments used to draw it must be, too. And so it proves. The rot starts early. The Foreword to the book was written by John Dugard, the South African lawyer who made the apartheid analogy, as a result of which Israel refused to allow him to conduct a UN-mandated fact-finding mission on its Gaza offensive in 2006.

The rot continues in the endorsements. Desmond Tutu – whom Alan Dershowitz called a "racist and a bigot" – says "This book deals rationally and cogently with a topic that almost always generates heat..." Stephen Sizer says "If you really care about peace in the Middle East, read this book." Sizer has given interviews to, endorsed or forwarded material from American white supremacists and Holocaust deniers. He has also applauded Ahmadinejad for having "looked forward to the day when Zionism ceased to exist"...' [Emphasis added]

The admirable Mr Hoffman (his stalwart efforts in support of Israel have made him a reviled and traduced figure among the nasty and vindictive elements within the UK-based anti-Israel brigade, but with characteristic zeal and moral courage he carries on regardless) does not stop there.  He continues:

'In the rest of this article I go through the book, cataloguing the omissions, inconsistencies and incorrect facts.

Part One takes only one paragraph to get to "ethnic cleansing" (a phrase repeated on average every 12 pages in the book). It then quotes Jabotinsky out of context: "Zionist colonisation, even the most restricted, must either be terminated or carried out in defiance of the will of the native population". Jabotinsky (writing in 1923) also said "I understand as well as anybody that we have got to find a modus vivendi with the Arabs; they will always live in the country, and all around the country, and we cannot afford a perpetuation of strife". But White does not quote that passage (of course). As we will see, ‘doctored' quotes (that is, partial quotes or quotes taken out of context or isolated from important supporting quotes) permeate this book.

White admits that Israeli Arabs have full voting rights – Dr. Talal Al-Shareef, Palestinian newspaper Al-Quds, May 27, 1999 how can he not? But of course he sees an ulterior motive: had it been otherwise, he says, "outside support would surely have been jeopardised."

But then White claims that the Israeli government planned the genocide of the Israeli Arabs. Why was it not worried about "outside support" now? It simply does not add up. (The claim of the intention of genocide is sourced from Moshe Machover, the Israeli Communist who now lives in the UK).

The tone of Chapter Two – on the history of Zionism – is set by the doctored quote with which it opens. As anyone who reads Guardian Comment Is Free knows, a whole new industry of manufacturing false quotes has been set up by the Israel bashers. White has chosen probably the most common one to open

 Chapter Two. David Ben-Gurion never said "We must expel Arabs and take their places!" He said the opposite: "We do not wish and do not need to expel Arabs and take their places."

The second quote at the head of Chapter Two is from Benny Morris: "Ben Gurion was right ... Without the uprooting of the Palestinians, a Jewish State would not have arisen here". First, that was not what Ben Gurion believed. Second, the quote refers to ‘transfer policy', a policy which was never advocated by more than a tiny minority of Israelis - for example the followers of the fanatic Rabbi Kahane. As Ami Iseroff has written, beginning with Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1948 (published in 1987) Morris has written several books and articles about the creation of the refugee problem in 1948 and related issues.

 In them, he carefully documented expulsions of Palestinians and massacres. He claimed that these were part of an unwritten policy. Yet later Morris notes the action of the Mayor of Haifa, Shabtai Levy, who on 22 April 1948 begged the Arabs to stay. In other words, Morris has been inconsistent. As Iseroff says "If "transfer" had been in the air, someone would remember it. Veterans of 1948 with whom I have spoken remember no such atmosphere of transfer. Transfer was always part of the ideology of revisionist Zionists and some Labour party activists. However, it was not part of the official ideology of the Labour-aligned political movements that supported the Haganah and the Palmach".

Another false quote from the "Israel Bashers' Greatest Hits" is "A Land Without A People, For A People Without A Land" ... But even White resists the temptation to attribute it to an early Zionist (it was "coined and propagated by nineteenth-century Christian writers"). For a more thorough scholarly analysis, see Diana Muir, Middle East Quarterly, Spring 2008.

Back to ‘transfer policy'. Instead of explaining that this was only the view of the fanatic Kahanists, White suggests it was the general policy of the Zionists. On page 17 we get "... it is important to realise just how central the ideas of ‘transfer' was to Zionist thinking and strategising. The need to ethnically cleanse Palestine of its native Arabs was understood at all levels of the Zionist leadership, starting with Ben-Gurion himself." On page 19 there follows an alleged Ben Gurion quote at the 20th Zionist Congress, sourced from Benny Morris: "the growing Jewish power in the country will increase our possibilities to carry out a large transfer". There are two problems with this alleged quote. The first is that it is from Ben Gurion's private diary – Dr. Talal Al-Shareef, Palestinian newspaper Al-Quds, May 27, 1999 it never appeared in the public domain. The second - entirely omitted by White, for obvious reasons – Dr. Talal Al-Shareef, Palestinian newspaper Al-Quds, May 27, 1999 is that the 20th Zionist Congress was convened in Zurich a month after the July 1937 publication of the Peel Report and was convened specifically to consider that Report. And what do we find in the Report? A recommendation for a transfer of land and population: "[s]ooner or later there should be a transfer of land and, as far as possible, an exchange of population".

To recap: Britain, the mandatory power in Palestine, had commissioned a Report, the recommendations of which were approved by the government in principle. That Report recommended that "[s]ooner or later there should be a transfer of land and, as far as possible, an exchange of population". One month later the Zionist Congress meets, specifically to consider the Peel Report. Is it so surprising then that it should discuss the Report's recommendation of ‘a transfer of land and ... an exchange of population?" (In October 1938 the Woodhead Commission effectively killed off the Peel proposals which were rejected by the Arabs and which split Jewish opinion).

... White is at pains to tell us how superior the Israeli military forces were to carry out the "forced ‘transfer' they knew was necessary for the old propaganda slogan of ‘a land without a people' to become a darkly self-fulfilling prophecy". Avi Shlaim is his source for his assertion that Jewish forces significantly outnumbered Arab forces throughout the 1948 War of Independence. What a shame White ignored this passage from the same source:

"It is true that the Yishuv numbered merely 650,000 souls, compared with 1.2 million Palestine Arabs and nearly 40 million Arabs in the surrounding states. It is true that the senior military advisers told the political leadership on 12 May 1948 that the Haganah had only a 'fifty-fifty' chance of withstanding the imminent Arab attack. It is true that the sense of weakness and vulnerability in the Jewish population was as acute as it was pervasive and that some segments of this population were gripped by a feeling of gloom and doom. And it is true that during three critical weeks, from the invasion of Palestine by the regular armies of the Arab states on 15 May until the start of the first truce on 11 June, this community had to struggle for its very survival."

[Regarding] the so-called ‘Naqba'. White opens with a quote from Henry Siegman (New York Review of Books, February 2004): "the dismantling of Palestinian society, the destruction of Palestinian towns and villages, and the expulsion of 700,000 Palestinians ... was a deliberate and planned operation intended to 'cleanse' (the term used in the declassified documents those parts of Palestine assigned to the Jews as a necessary pre-condition for the emergence of a Jewish state)."

Again, White omits to tell us crucial information about the quote. In Siegman's article, the quote is said to come from a Benny Morris interview in Ha'aretz (January 9, 2004). But here is what Morris said in response to Siegman's NYRB article:

"In his article, Siegman repeatedly "cited" things I had said-with a consistency of distortion that is truly mind-boggling. Just to give one key example: I most emphatically never stated anywhere that "the dismantling of Palestinian society...and the expulsion of 700,000 Palestinians [were] a deliberate and planned operation intended to 'cleanse'...those parts of Palestine assigned to the Jews." Quite the opposite. Had Siegman bothered to read my books, he would have discovered that mainstream (Haganah-JewishAgency) Zionist policy, until the end of March 1948-meaning during the first four months of the war-was to protect the Arab minority in the Jewish areas and to try to maintain peaceful coexistence. Intentions changed only in April, when the Yishuv was with its back to the wall, losing the battle for the roads and facing potentially politicidal and genocidal pan-Arab invasion. And even then, no systematic policy of expulsion was ever adopted or implemented (hence Israel's one-million-strong Arab minority today). The Arabs have only themselves to blame for the (unexpected) results of the war that they launched with the aim of "ethnically cleansing" Palestine of the Jews."

Jews driven from their Jerusalem homes by Arab troops

White's account of the so-called Naqba is par for the course from an anti-Zionist. Of course there were isolated but regrettable atrocities committed by the Jewish forces, as atrocities occur in most wars: Deir Yassin (though that was irregulars), and some of what happened at Lydda and Ramle (following Arab attacks on Jewish traffic on roads near the strategically important cities throughout 1947). But there was no ‘ethnic cleansing' and Plan Dalet was not a masterplan to achieve this non-aim, as White contends. As Benny Morris has written, "There was no Zionist "plan" or blanket policy of evicting the Arab population, or of "ethnic cleansing". Plan Dalet (Plan D), of March 10th, 1948 (it is open and available for all to read in the IDF Archive and in various publications), was the master plan of the Haganah - the Jewish military force that became the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) - to counter the expected pan-Arab assault on the emergent Jewish state. That's what it explicitly states and that's what it was. "
–  Irish Times, 21 February 2008

Deir Yassin was followed a few days later by the conveniently forgotten massacre of 70 academics, doctors and nurses travelling to Mt. Scopus carried out by Arabs in revenge. [See my post here: D.A.] The remains of their convoy line the road to Jerusalem to this day as a memorial.Part Two of this catalogue of falsehoods purports to describe the methods by which Israeli ‘apartheid' has been maintained. The fact-twisting starts in the third paragraph: "Israel is not a State for all of its citizens ... but rather a State for some of its citizens: Jews". Such an assertion writes off the Declaration of Independence:

"[Israel] will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations" and writes off all the ‘checks and balances' in a thriving democracy which are there to protect minorities - as in all thriving democracies. To support his argument White ... reprints a quote from Shamir ("the Jewish state cannot exist without a special ideological content. We cannot exist for long like any other state whose main interest is to insure the welfare of its citizens") without revealing (a) that it was said when Shamir was in opposition and (b) that the quote was nothing to do with suppressing minority rights and everything to do with criticising his successor, Rabin, for failing in his inaugural speech to refer to Israel's Biblical status as the promised land.

The next "fraud on the reader" ... is a 1972 quote from Yeshayahu Ben-Porat ...: "One certain truth is that there is no Zionist settlement and there is no Jewish State without confiscating lands and fencing them off." First, this was not said about Arab citizens of Israel, it was said about the West Bank and Gaza; second it was not an ‘ex-cathedra' pronouncement by a politician but merely a call by a journalist to the government to recognise the implications of the occupied territories.

... White suggests that the Absentee Property Law (1950) allows land of absentee Arabs to be seized ‘if the owner was absent for even just one day'. This is pure sophistry. The text of the Law makes it clear that it applied only to long-term absentees. Moreover absentees that had left Israel were compensated financially. And decisions under the Law are subject to judicial review (as is the case with all administrative decision-making). For example, in an opinion of 1 February 2005, Attorney-General Menachem Mazuz held that the Ministerial Committee and the Israeli Cabinet had exceeded their powers under the Law.

Now White moves the focus to Gaza and the West Bank. Nowhere in this section does he mention that Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005 ... (and nowhere does he mention the Khartoum Conference (August 29 to September 1, 1967) where eight heads of Arab countries responded to Israel's offer to give back the lands with Three No's: "No Peace, No Recognition of Israel, No Negotiations". Instead we get "and theft'"assertions: "the main characteristic of Israel's rule in the OPT since 1967 has been land theft." While there may be some cases of land acquired without compensation (see the recent Spiegel Report) the situation is far more nuanced than White suggests. First a final peace settlement will see the restitution of most of the land under Israel control in the West Bank. The exceptions will be compensated by "land swaps" which has already been agreed with the Palestinian negotiators. Second Israel's right to control the use of public land (in the so-called Area C, amounting to 72 percent) was accepted by the Palestinians at Oslo.

White repeats the untruth that the settlements are illegal... The United States for example has not considered them illegal since the time of Professor Eugene Rostow, US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs, 1966-9. Article 49(6) of the 4th Geneva Convention does not prohibit the voluntary movement of Israelis who wish to live in Jerusalem or the West Bank, since this does not constitute a deportation or transfer within the meaning of that provision, which mentions the word ‘forcible' ("...individual or mass forcible transfers....")

Much the same applies to White's assertion that the separation fence is illegal. It is not. The ICJ declared it so - but the ICJ has no legal standing. It is the judicial body of the United Nations. Its opinions are advisory only. On occasion White lapses into pure invective eg p. 73: "The logic of the wall is to grab as much land as possible, with as few Palestinians as possible". Wrong - the logic of the fence is to save the lives of Israelis - all Israelis - from suicide bombers and in pursuit of that aim it has been highly successful. Many countries have similar fences to protect their citizens.

The book ends with some FAQs, mostly a rehash of earlier material. However we do get White's view (or rather, Charles D. Smith's view) of the Camp David negotiations in 2000: "Israel never offered the Palestinians 95 percent of the West Bank as reports indicated at the time. The "generous offer'"was just another incarnation of previous Israeli plans to annex huge swathes of the OPT, retaining major settlement blocs ‘that effectively cut the West Bank into three sections with full Israeli control from Jerusalem to the Jordan River' ".

Dennis Ross was at Camp David in the US negotiating team. If you go to Dennis Ross's book The Missing Peace you will learn that the Palestinians turned down an offer of 91 percent of the West Bank in contiguous territory plus an additional 1 percent in land swaps (there was to be a continued Israeli security presence along 15 percent of the border with Jordan). Contiguous - not cut "into three sections".

In April 2000 Nelson Mandela came to London and spoke to the Board of Deputies of British Jews. He spoke of the need for Israel to leave the lands taken in 1967 but not unless there was first recognition of the Jewish State by the Arab States: "I added a second position, that Israel cannot be expected to withdraw from the Arab territories which she legitimately conquered when the Arab States wanted to whip her out of the map of the world." No mention of "apartheid'" in Israel – from a man who spent 27 years as a prisoner of the loathsome apartheid regime in South Africa.There can be no better answer to Ben White than that.

This artless, crude piece of Israel-bashing will no doubt be welcomed in all the usual circles but anyone with a modicum of independent critical faculty will soon see it for the tired piece of intellectually bankrupt propaganda that it is. ...' [Emphasis added]