"It is Clear That Many British Muslims Reserve a Special Hatred for British Jews"

An interesting article's just appeared by an Arab supporter of Israel regarding the moral bankruptcy of BDS and how it is damaging the Palestinian people.

It's by Fred Maroun, who was born and grew up in Lebanon, left that country in 1984, and now lives in Canada.

But have you read David Collier's latest blogpost?

It's a real disturbing eye-opener regarding what's going on across British campuses.

And as Mr Collier has remarked today on social media:

Can we now put the question "is BDS antisemitic?" to bed please. I've been to scores of events on campus, and yes, I have heard plenty of rabid antisemitism. But that was always just my experience, my opinion. Until yesterday. We have a few things to build on. We know that without the Palestinian and Islamic societies BDS wouldn't get any airtime at all. We know that standing for positions with the student unions is being used as a way of pushing the BDS cause. We know that on many campuses, especially in the south, events that BDS hold have a mainly Muslim audience. During Apartheid week, in the count for the events I attended, it was always above 70%.

So what do we know now. We know that many of these people in the BDS audience, supporting Apartheid week, think adultery is a crime worth stoning. We know that there is huge support for Sharia law implementation amongst them (rather than democracy), we know that they do not on the whole support freedom of speech, that they have a real problem with gays and of course, that there is a problem with antisemitism.

Which means that in the BDS room.... in the room that just coincidentally happens to have a problem with the Jewish state, there are gay hating, Jew hating, freedom hating, liberty hating people pretending to support a humanitarian cause, just so another one of their pet hates gets fed. And we also now know we are not talking about just a 'tiny minority of them'. It is done now, the argument is over. Whatever BDS inside a book (in theory) might be, we know that in practice much of the crowd is antisemitic. The university has to recognise this and end the practice on campus. BDS is a wagon of antisemitsm.. It is time to force the people off the bus.

And more essential if depressing reading.

 'For at least twenty years, the British Jewish community has been out in front when it comes to interfaith work. As Britain’s Muslim population has grown, British Jews assumed that interfaith models that led to huge advances in relations with British Christians, could apply just as well to relations with British Muslims. Indeed building bridges with British Muslims has become the focus of outreach work by British Jews.

Today, our analysis of the ICM survey of British Muslims for Channel 4 and Juniper Television shows that the gradual buildup of understanding and friendship between Britain’s Jews and Muslims has been utterly eclipsed by growing antisemitism amongst British Muslims.

On every single count, British Muslims were more likely by far than the general British population to hold deeply antisemitic views. It is clear that many British Muslims reserve a special hatred for British Jews, rating Jews much less favourably than people of other religions or no religion, yet astonishingly British Muslims largely do not recognise antisemitism as a major problem.

It has long been suspected that sections of the British Muslim population harboured hatred towards British Jews. This survey goes some way to identifying pockets of prejudice, but it also shows that the prejudice is horrifyingly widespread.

From the ICM survey data made available by Channel 4 and Juniper Television, we have been able to identify some of the worst pockets of prejudice. Antisemitic British Muslims are more likely to be men, to be older than 35, to be social renters, to be in employment, to have been born outside Britain, to live south of the Midlands in England, or in Scotland, and they are overwhelmingly likely to sympathise with terrorism, violence and extremism.

The data is frustratingly limited in one [sic] some respects, and one in particular: it does not delve into the various political and religious movements that comprise the British Muslim population.This data shows that Jews remain the "canary in the coal mine", as they have been throughout history: those who harbour hatred of Jews also hate British society and sympathise with our most deadly enemies. Britain must confront rampant antisemitism within its Muslim population, but also amongst the general population, whose shocking views should be no less concerning simply because the views of British Muslims are worse.'

See the results of the survey with analysis and full report here

Another county heard from: arch-secularist Keith Porteous Wood:

 But at least he's apologised ...

"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:

Canadian Campus Bigots Turn Deaf Ears To Arab Israelis Debunking The "Apartheid" Slur

Rabea Bader (who's on the extreme right of this photo from the article cited below), is a member of Israel's 125,000-strong Druze community.  He is one of eight young Israelis from various backgrounds who has participated in the WorldSwap scheme, organised by StandWithUsCanada, designed to help debunk the outrageous "Israeli Apartheid" myth which bedevils so many campuses and has (see my post here) caused the undergraduates of one Canadian university, Windsor in Ontario, to vote in favour of BDS.

As the Canadian Jewish News (CJN) reports:

'The WordSwap team travelled to the University of Toronto, York University, the University of Windsor, the University of Guelph, the University of Ottawa and Carleton University, where they held tabling sessions and engaged students in informal conversation, answered challenging questions and shared personal stories about their service in the Israel Defence Forces.'

Mr Bader, who studies computer science and economics at Tel Aviv University, told the CJN that

'he met a number of people at U of T who were shocked to learn that Arabs live in Israel. “I said, ‘I’m living proof,’” he said, going so far as to converse with them in Arabic to convince them further. “I’ve travelled a lot, and I’ve been called [names] when they learn that I’m from Israel ... I see how Israel is misrepresented in the media… They’re accusing Israel of apartheid… and you know it’s not true, but if you don’t stand up and say it’s not true, a lot of people are going to believe these lies.”

 Muhamed Heeb, a young Bedouin postgraduate student at the University of Haifa (who participated in the scheme last year as well) told the paper:

“I wanted to meet the Canadian students and tell them the truth. Last year, I met a lot of students… I keep in touch with many of the students from last year, and this is one of my goals – to bring our image of Israel… Some did not know there are Arabs in Israel. A lot of people were surprised....

I asked them a lot of questions, but they didn’t answer any of them. They wanted to boycott Ben-Gurion University, so I said, ‘Listen guys, Ben-Gurion University has the most Arab girls, Bedouin girls, studying there, more than [schools in] Arab countries.’ I told them I was from the University of Haifa. I’m Arab. I’m doing my master’s, and my faculty would not be able to exchange the knowledge that we have. But they didn’t answer [me].”

 Indeed, according to Orit Tepper,  a co-organiser of the WorldSwap scheme,:

 'every time one of the WordSwap members took the microphone, organizers stopped recording. “They censored them. A member of our group said, ‘I’m an Israeli Arab, my grandparents have lived there, I’ve lived there, I have full rights, I’ve served in the IDF, I work in Tel Aviv, I don’t face discrimination, so how can you say that if you haven’t even been there?’”

 See more here

Meanwhile, across the herring pond, Kay Wilson, survivor of a dreadful Palestinian terror attack that left her with terrible wounds and her companion dead, has lent her support to the Sussex Friends of Israel's valiant campaign against BDS bigotry in Brighton:

She was there with the director of StandWithUsUK (to which organisation I owe the photo credit).

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]