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

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

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

More here

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:

"They're Actively Working in Glasgow...They Can Identify You ..."

Och, those evil Zionists and their running dogs.

At an Israel-demonising bash in Scotland's second city recently, Scottish PSC chief Mick Napier rallies others of that ilk with the usual Israel- and IDF-demonising claptrap.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XICwqB_FGI

Like our old friend the ex-vicar of Virginia Water, the hoary-headed chieftain and "human rights activist" has no qualms about appearing on Iran's Press TV.

And here he is, strutting his stuff on the Fars newsagency.

What a farce!

Sheer Nonsense About "Apartheid" (video)

Some familiar fanatics here.  Israel-demonising seems to be their all-consuming hobby, but I guess the bloke with the Irish accent and the grey-haired gal with the fruity tones (often heard in other videos by our old mate Alex Seymour)  have left off reciting anti-Israel "poetry" to hapless Tube train commuters, which was a stunt of theirs a couple of years or so back.

Watch the well-spoken "man of colour" (as he describes himself) tell his eager interviewer that there's no greater "display of apartheid than the wall" (obviously, he hasn't read my post here!) and his adulation for a certain politician (no prizes for guessing the one he has in mind!).

I would have thought Israel-bashing by the Frauen might have taken a back seat in Deutschland, given the troubles that Mrs Merkel's Open Door policy seems to be wreaking for the female of the species:

Read article here

 But, no, they're still staging "flash mob" stunts.  Careful, ladies, you might one day find yourselves prone for real, if the above article is any indication.

"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

"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:

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).

A Young Black African's Jewish Journey (video)

I've only just discovered this video, which was uploaded to YouTube almost a year ago.  It's very touching, most interesting in its own right.

But for reasons that will become at once apparent it plays its part in giving the lie to the "Apartheid State" slur. 

It's long, but please watch the first ten minutes at least.  Watching the entire video is instructive, and very rewarding.

To quote the uploader onto YouTube:

"The remarkable story of a black African from a royal lineage in Swaziland who was raised a Christian, converted to Judaism and became a Haredi Litvish Rabbi in Israel. It begins with Rabbi Natan Gamedze's first visit home in 16 years and traces back his extraordinary spiritual journey from Swaziland to Israel. By following Rabbi Gamedze's journey to Judaism, this story provides an extraordinary insight into orthodox Jewish thinking from a completely different background. Along the way it gently explores race issues, pre and post apartheid."

Good Lord!

The recent federal election results in Australia point to a slow political decline for the Greens, which is very welcome news for all who love Israel.   Like the Greens in Australia and in Britain (this photo of the latters' former leader Caroline Lucas MP speaks for itself), Britain's Liberal Democrats have many enemies of Israel in their ranks, typifying the  noxious "Israelis are the embodiment of evil/the Palestinians are blameless" mindset of the Leftist/Islamist nexus so well described here in this video by Professor Robert Wistrich.

So embedded is such demonisation of Israel in parties and opinion organs of the Left (and as Wistrich notes, not only the Far Left) that it's easy to overlook the fact, and good to be reminded,  that there's a staunch pro-Israel life peer among the Lib Dems.  Baron Palmer of Childs Hill, a former chairman of the Liberal Democrat Friends of Israel and a member of the Golders Green Synagogue, is a splendid antidote to  such inveterate and unsavoury critics of Israel as Baroness Tonge (pictured) and David Ward (see a summary of his odious stance here), to name but two of the most notorious among  a monstrous regiment of Israel-demonising Lib Dems.

Lord Palmer, who was born almost a year before the Second World War broke out, is a councillor in the London borough of Barnet, and was made a life peer in 2011.  The following video shows him being introduced into the House of Lords in the traditional ceremonial appropriate to such occasions:

In February this year, during a Lords' debate on the Middle East, Lord Palmer said:

'… Israel is an incredibly diverse country. While over 70 percent of Israelis are Jewish, they come from across the world. Approximately half of Israel’s citizens today were born outside the country. In addition, Israel is home to Arab Muslims, Christians, Druze and Samaritans, as well as other religious and ethnic minority groups. What other country in the region allows such diversity?

 .... Arab Israelis have served as elected representatives of the Knesset since Israel was founded and were elected in the recent election. They also serve on Israel’s powerful Supreme Court, which a noble Lord mentioned previously. However, despite equality in the law, socioeconomic gaps remain—an issue which the Government of Israel, together with numerous Israeli civil society organizations, are rightly seeking to tackle...."

The following month, during the infamous David Ward affair, Lord Palmer received a hectoring letter (by no means the first one: "I do not normally reply to Morley missives ...") from Elizabeth Morley, an Hungarian-born anti-Israel activist who happens to be of Jewish extraction, and is quoted here as once saying

"if I wanted, I could make Aliyah. But I believe it would be wrong to do so because non-Jews have been ethnically cleansed from Palestine to make way for people like me who have no family connections on that land".

Mrs Morley arrived in Britain with her mother shortly after the 1956 Hungarian Uprising, she once told her local newspaper, writing elsewhere:

"My father ended up going to Palestine on his own after failing to persuade the mother of his under-age sweetheart (my mother) to let her and the baby go with him. I like to think that he learned from the Holocaust. I like to think that he did not kill or expel any Palestinians. I think that when David Ward made those comments he was thinking of people like my father, European Jews who went to Palestine immediately after the Holocaust."

Thus explained the woman who, as secretary, runs the Palestine Solidarity Campaign branch  in the little Welsh seaside resort and university town of Aberystwyth.

That remote branch, whose inner core consists of a trio of elderly women who meet weekly in a campus restaurant to plan their latest assaults on the Zionist Entity (here's a recent one, by the look of it), makes up in zeal what it lacks in numbers, as indicated by its secretary's numerous screeds hither and thither,  including this clumsy venture onto CiF Watch, her ludicrous letter to David Cameron, her risible e-petition asking David Cameron to apologise for the Balfour Declaration, and her badgering communication to the Board of Deputies of British Jews:

'She has also written to the Board of Deputies of British Jews expressing her concern about the way it exploits the memory of the Holocaust in order to gag criticism of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian people. “I cannot find evidence of the board having ever issued its own criticism of Israel’s policies... Several of my relatives died in the concentration camps, but that has not made me insensitive to the suffering of the Palestinians, who have been made to pay the price for what the Christian world did to the Jews.”'

Then there's her recent insistence here that Gilad Atzmon, widely perceived as a Jewish antisemite,  is more sinned against than sinning:

"I have heard the same old tosh from several people, that Gilad is this, Gilad is that. When I ask them to point to the passages in his book which subsantiate the accusations, they can’t. Gilad is asking Zionists to take the painful journey of self-examination, discovery, realisation and admission of truths they have tried to avoid. Not many are capable of taking this journey, of incorporating the message into their psyches. So they try to shoot the messenger instead."

 What Mrs Morley wrote to Lord Palmer is unclear, but it was perhaps along the lines of what she wrote to others outraged by Ward's remarks, including Karen Pollock, CEO of the UK Holocaust Memorial Trust:

"[W]hat’s wrong with saying that the Jews in Israel commit atrocities in Palestine?  They do. Is one not allowed to use the word ‘Jew’ in any negative context? Is that it?

.... Holocaust Memorial Day should sear our consciences and, more to the point, it should inspire us to defend all who continue to suffer injustice and oppression. I believe that you should be supporting David Ward and, moreover, expressing your admiration for him.”

His Lordship responded: 

"David Ward made very inappropriate comments as he signed a Holocaust Memorial Book. Can anyone think of a more crass moment to say the JEWS should have learnt lesson from The Holocaust. Firstly he said Jews not Israelis which are not the same. Secondly to compare actions of Israel which he disapproves of with the Nazi death camps is responsible[sic] and offensive.

I lost a grandmother in the Holocaust. I lost an uncle as a British soldier in 1st World war. My late father served in British Army in 2nd World War. What does Ms Morley and others believe I should have learnt. I was deeply hurt by Mr Ward’s comments. I await his apology.

Ms Morley and others criticise Israel; that is their democratic right even if they are wrong. It would just seem less ‘anti-Jewish’ if they criticized killings and murders in other parts of the world...."

At the close of last year, during a Lords' debate on Arabs in Israel initiated by the Israel-criticising Bishop of Exeter, Lord Palmer reminded the House:

"Sadly, to be a Jew in most countries of the region is not comfortable or even possible in many places. Indeed, Christians such as the Copts of Egypt are under severe pressure.... 

The right reverend Prelate told mainly a story of a half-empty glass. I will try to tell a story of a half-full glass and how the Israeli Government, unlike their neighbours, are working hard to improve the situation of their minorities ....

As an example of a half-full glass, in 2010 Israel approved a $220 million five-year development plan for thirteen Arab cities and towns, including $30 million for the expansion of public transportation. The plan is actually being implemented by the Authority for the Economic Development for Arab, Druze and Circassian Sectors, based in the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office, and is focused on twelve specific Arab and Druze localities, including Nazareth and Rahat... The Israeli Government are also allocating funds for thirteen industrial parks in Arab communities.

There are some real examples of action being taken. Prime Minister Netanyahu recognised the deficiencies in the workforce and stated earlier this year—I know it is only a statement but he said it—that:

 “The Arab sector is a main growth engine for the Israeli economy”

....In July 2012, the Israeli Government launched a new affirmative action campaign to encourage companies, especially in the high-tech sector, to employ Israeli Arabs, with the Government contributing 25 per cent of their salary. The hope is that this will encourage companies which are, as has been mentioned, reluctant to take on Arab employees to do so. Once this had been done, it will reduce discrimination in the workplace. In June 2012, the Israeli Government launched a public awareness campaign against prejudice and discrimination by Israeli companies against Arabs. That cannot be tolerated. Also in June 2012, Cisco chief executive officer John Chambers announced a four-year plan to create 12,000 new technology jobs for Israeli Arabs. He said:

“We have an opportunity to show the rest of the world what we can do together with a government that really gets it and with citizens who really get it”.

....This is all against a background of Khaled Meshaal, the Hamas leader, on his very recent visit to Gaza, referring to the liberation of Palestine in Ramallah, Jerusalem, Haifa and Jaffa while the crowds yelled, “Hit, hit Tel Aviv”.

 This is also at a time when 40,000 have been killed in Syria without a demonstration in the UK. Nor were there Motions in this House when Hamas shot men accused of being Israeli spies without even the pretence of a trial. Their bodies were then dragged through the street behind motorcycles.

 I am not saying that there are not inequalities for Israeli Arabs—or Israeli Palestinians if you want—that need to be dealt with and are being dealt with, but perhaps we should also reflect on the bloody conflict between Sunni and Shia Muslims, the hounding of the Christian Coptic community in Egypt, the unrest in a number of Middle Eastern states and the toppling of regimes.

In Israel, Arabs have served as elected representatives in the Knesset, the Israeli Parliament, since Israel’s first elections in 1949. There are currently 17 Israeli Arabs and Druze in the Knesset out of a Chamber of 120, although that is short of the 24 which under strict proportional terms would reflect the numbers of the Arab-Israeli population. There are many Israeli Arab judges.... They include Israeli Supreme Court Justice Salim Joubran and George Kara—he has been mentioned—who presided in the Tel Aviv district court that convicted former Israeli President Katsav.

Israel’s first Muslim consul general was appointed in Atlanta in 1997; Israel’s first Muslim ambassador was appointed to Finland in 1995; Israel’s first Druze ambassador was appointed to Vietnam in 1999; in 2004 Bnei Sakhnin was the first Arab Israeli football team to win the State Cup; and—still on the soccer theme—the Arab Israeli football star Walid Badir is the captain of Hapoel Tel Aviv. The Arab-Israeli Mira Awad represented Israel at the Eurovision Song Contest; and the Arab Israeli Rana Raslan was Miss Israel.

Do noble Lords remember the amazing time—amazing to me and I am sure to everyone else—when Majalli Wahabi, a Druze, was the acting President of Israel? Noble Lords may have read the Bedouin Israeli diplomat Ishmael Khaldi’s book A Shepherd's Journey. In academia there are Bedouin professors and others whom I do not have enough time to relate.

Of course, if there was no problem, no action would be required. The reasons advanced

for the standard of living for Israeli Arabs being generally lower than the Jewish and Christian Israeli population are poorer participation in education and the failure of women to take up employment. I will tell your Lordships’ House the following sad statistics: twice as many Muslims leave school without qualification; three times as many are unemployed; three times as many live below the poverty line. I should add that these sad figures are not in Israel but in Britain. It is sad here and it is sad there.

The reasons for inequalities in Israel, Britain and elsewhere are generally due to education, employment and where you are in the food chain of life. The aim in Israel and the UK is to improve the conditions of all by improving opportunities for a better life.

Finally, it would be good if the right reverend Prelate could also acknowledge that 850,000 Jews have been forcibly displaced and exiled from Arab countries since 1948, and that justice for such Jewish refugees from Arab countries has been expunged from the peace and justice narrative for the past 65 years...."

"As A Black South African, I Know What Apartheid Is..."

Don't just take Dennis Prager's word that Israel is emphatically not an apartheid state, as he so ably explains in this video:

Takes Kenneth Meshoe's word for it as well.

The black South African parliamentarian speaks eloquently about "the lie that Israel is an apartheid state" and asks those who spread that lie to visit Israel and see for themselves that the analogy drawn between Israel and South Africa not only defames Israel, it belittles the suffering of black people in Apartheid South Africa.

 
See also here

Perhaps the lefties in Britain who rant and rave against Israel's so-called apartheid can now transfer their opposition to segregation closer to home, and call for the closure of the Muslim school in Derby which not only makes female pupils sit at the back of the classroom but apparently also requires girls to yield their places in queues to boys!!!

"The Apartheid Smear": Sound Sense From Professor Alan Johnson (videos)

Professor Alan Johnson is a Senior Research Fellow at the British Israel Research & Communications Centre (BICOM); see his biography here

In a panel discussion at the University of Leicester earlier this year, hosted by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and chaired by Ismail Patel of Friends of Al Aqsa, on the topic "Is Israel an apartheid state?", Professor Johnson spoke spiritedly in support of Israel, demolishing the canard that Israeli policies resemble those of Apartheid-era South Africa:

Tough Talk From A Cobber, & Busting The "Apartheid State" Obscenity (video)

"With events that have taken place in recent times, one can only come to the conclusion that Israel is a democracy gone insane," lamented an exasperated Australian friend of Israel this past week.

"I don’t know what the answer is. We see the spectacle of an Arab member of the Knesset who participated in the Gaza flotilla a few years ago who, after having been stripped of her Knesset membership for an act of treason, applied to the Supreme Court and had her membership reinstated. We see in Israel, supposedly Zionist organisations siding with Arabs and other motley groups trying to lay claim over parts of the Negev. All in the name of political correctness, we see Israeli children being taught the Palestinian propaganda narrative of the birth of Israel – Al Nakba (the catastrophe). We see an Israeli professor in Beersheba make the claim that Israeli soldiers are racists because there has never been a case of rape against Arab women. Excavations are proceeding relentlessly under the Temple Mount by the Islamic Waqf (whom Israel put in charge after the 1967 war).

This holiest of Jewish sites is an archaeological treasure trove that should be excavated with a toothbrush but is being bulldozed by the Waqf to rid the area of any remnants of a Jewish presence during the first and second temple periods. Who knows what has already been lost forever. There is no doubt that Arabs are constructing a massive Mosque under the Temple Mount in order to lay claim to the area. The Israeli electoral system is a shambles and is in need of a first past the post electoral reform where winner takes all.

We have the disgraceful scenario where Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid has the audacity and sheer disrespect to state that if his conditions for coalition participation are not met “In a year and a half, I’ll replace him (Netanyahu) as Prime minister”. Going by past performance, everyone in the newly formed coalition will babble on about his own agenda and speak on issues that are not in their portfolio. It is time for all to shut up and speak only if authorised.

How many times have we seen cabinet ministers bag and denigrate their Prime Minister on the world stage at every opportunity? They can’t even be united in the face of an existential threat!

Finally we have the spectacle of Sudanese being aided and abetted by Egypt to make their way through the desert and actually allowed to cross the border into Israel where they are given food, water and shelter but where the deportation issue is always challenged by some group or another. The Egyptians are obviously trying various ways of bringing Israel to its knees. Making sure that approximately 100,000 illiterate Sudanese flood into Israel is one way to go about it. For Israel to have fallen for this trap is another example of stupidity passing for policy.

One of the greatest tragedies of all is the pathetic “Hasbara” efforts by Israel.

It has a worldwide platform, but its spokespeople have no idea how to counter the propaganda. When it comes to Hasbara, Israel is like a ship without a rudder adrift on the sea. Hasbara has to come from representatives of the Israeli Government and right now they hardly speak with one voice on anything and when and if they ever do, it is ineffectual. For once I’d love to see an Israeli Govt. spokesman start by saying to the PA in particular and the world at large: “How dare you issue such blatant lies, now here are the facts.” One way or another, Israel better get its act together pretty quickly."

Meanwhile, ahead of "Israel Apartheid Week," here's a man who's challenging blatant lies, and presenting the facts.  More power to Dennis Prager:

Hagel & The Mullahs (video) & Here It Comes, Here It Comes Again (video)

The Emergency Committee for Israel continues its seemingly well-justified campaign against Defense Secretary nominee Senator Chuck Hagel.  This advertisement, entitled "Endorsed," is due to air on television screens in Washington, DC and New York from tomorrow.  It contrasts Hagel's views on the Iranian regime, which he described last week as "elected" and "legitimate," with Hillary Clinton's description of the regime as a "military dictatorship".

And now, as a video bonus, a rude reminder that this annual excrescence will soon be upon us:

Meanwhile, the disturbing impact on Jewish students caused by the shameful support by a majority of the professors in the Political Science Department at Brooklyn College for the department's co-sponsorship of a BDS event on campus is evident in this lament:

"... I don’t think this is just a pro-Palestinian event, this is an anti-Israel event. The speakers have a history of speaking about the destruction of Israel. BDS is not just a pro-Palestinian group, it’s anti-Israel. So for them to sponsor this event is troubling to me because it seems as though they are taking a side. Which is something that should not be happening at a college.

 As a Jew, as someone who supports Israel, it makes me feel very uncomfortable sitting in front of these teachers."

Read more here

"They Call This Apartheid?" Scenes From An Album

These photos were sent to me from Eretz Israel by Jean Vercors, who owns the copyright and provided the apt captions, and to whom I'm enormously grateful.

Properly speaking, then, this is a guest post by him.

The only further remark I will make is that it is a pity (nay, a scandal) that the BBC cannot be induced to show images such as these as representative of Israel, instead of those to which this recent article draws attention.