Eretz Israel is our unforgettable historic homeland...The Jews who will it shall achieve their State...And whatever we attempt there for our own benefit will redound mightily and beneficially to the good of all mankind.(Theodor Herzl, DerJudenstaat, 1896)
We offer peace and amity to all the neighbouring states and their peoples, and invite them to cooperate with the independent Jewish nation for the common good of all. The State of Israel is ready to contribute its full share to the peaceful progress and development of the Middle East.(From Proclamation of the State of Israel, 5 Iyar 5708; 14 May 1948) With a liberal democratic political system operating under the rule of law, a flourishing market economy producing technological innovation to the benefit of the wider world, and a population as educated and cultured as anywhere in Europe or North America, Israel is a normal Western country with a right to be treated as such in the community of nations.... For the global jihad, Israel may be the first objective. But it will not be the last.(Friends of Israel Initiative)
Showing posts with label Leftwing Attitudes to Jews and Israel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Leftwing Attitudes to Jews and Israel. Show all posts
Following news that seven Labour MPs (and now an eighth, Joan Ryan, who in a devastating indictment of Corbyn has made his failure to deal with antisemitism in the party central to herdefection) have left the party and formed their own Independent Group, "the oldest hatred" rears its ugly Medusa's head.
No surprise to Labour Against Antisemitism, aware as it is of the loathsome sentiments engendered in the party under Corbyn:
See, for instance, the comments that greet this report. (Bonus: a chance to see Gorgeous George!)
Conservative candidate Robert Largan deploring vile comments encouraged by this MP's malice:
And then there's this (hat tip: Jonathan Hoffman in a Facebook post). Tim Llewellyn, of course, used to be a BBC correspondent.
And on Twitter via an extreme anti-Israel activist, this:
Interesting tweets regarding the latest developments in Labour ranks from international relations academic Dr James Vaughan:
The Times of London (19 February):
And (hat tip: Jonathan Hoffman) at the instigation of Mrs May's government, in order to embarrass Corbyn, the House of Commons (20 February) will debate [update: has debated] the topic "Antisemitism in modern Society"!
A tweet by Wales-based international relations academic and UK-Israel relations specialist James Vaughan ("Would talk less about antisemitism if there were less of it about"):
',,,,The Met tweeted to say police in Lambeth were investigating reports of fly-posting and that "offensive material will be removed". The posters shocked Londoners making their way home from work, with many describing them as “vile” and “terrifying”. Others claimed the adverts were a “hate crime”. A TfL[Transport for London' spokesperson said: "These adverts are absolutely not authorised by TfL or our advertising partner JCDecaux. “It is fly posting and therefore an act of vandalism which we take extremely seriously. We have instructed our contractors to remove any of these posters found on our network immediately.”....'
Making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical
allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective — such
as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish
conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or
other societal institutions.
Accusing Jews as a people
of being responsible for real or imagined wrongdoing committed by a
single Jewish person or group, or even for acts committed by non-Jews.
Denying the fact, scope, mechanisms (e.g. gas chambers) or
intentionality of the genocide of the Jewish people at the hands of
National Socialist Germany and its supporters and accomplices during
World War II (the Holocaust).
Accusing the Jews as a people, or Israel as a state, of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust.
Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations.
Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.
Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.
Using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (e.g., claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis.
Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.
Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel.
"[O]n Israel, on the Jewish State, suddenly freedom of speech becomes important to them. The Corbyn crew is reluctant to adopt in full the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of anti-Semitism because they think it will undermine the freedom to denounce and mock and ridicule Israel. This is literally the only time I have heard Corbynistas defend freedom of speech. The only freedom that excites them is the freedom to say Israel is foul, Israeli leaders are Nazi-esque, and British Jews might be a tad disloyal to Britain.
As I say, double standards. Jews and Jewish issues are always treated differently by Corbynistas. And there’s a word for that: prejudice...." [Emphasis added]
Double standards appear to be discernible in these interviews by the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire, who closely quizzes and frequently interrupts Mark Lewis (a prominent lawyer) and Mandy Blumenthal (whom she ludicrously describes as a member of the non-existent UK Zionist Party!) regarding their perceptions of antisemitism, in contrast to her interview with three Muslims regarding "Islamophobia".
To quote a certain indefatigable pro-Israel activist, commenting on Facebook:
"Derbyshire's interviewing of Mark Lewis and Mandy Blumenthal was appalling. She pretended there was no antisemitism in Labour. She simply read out Corbyn's statements. She was like his press spokesperson. Shameful. She even told Blumenthal she is a member of the 'UK Zionist Party'! Such ignorance. There is no such Party."
Amid interruptions, New South Wales treasurer Dominic Perottet and colleague Alister Henskens condemn in state Parliament some dubious company that a couple of opposition Labor MPs have been keeping in connection with protests against Bibi Netanyahu's recent (highly successful) visit to Australia:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bT3D-_xFlrQ
Reported J-Wire recently, inter alia:
'The Australasian Union of Jewish Students invited members the NSW Young Greens to a meeting with bipartisan young political staffers at the NSW Parliament.But co-convener of the NSW Young Greens Kleon Toffetti confirmed to the Daily Telegraph “We have a longstanding position of not supporting this organisation because … they support the occupation of Palestine illegally.”The Telegraph wrote in an email: “It is true that NSWYG have a history of not engaging with AUJS, and I expect that this will continue for the foreseeable future.
A spokesperson for Greens leader Richard di Natale told J-Wire: “The NSW Young Greens are an independent body and we have nothing to do with them. They exercise total independence and in general their views do necessarily reflect ours.”
In a joint statement Isabelle Polgar and Ariel Zohar of AUJS said:
“The Australasian Union of Jewish Students (AUJS) is angered and disappointed that the NSW Young Greens have informed AUJS it is their official policy to boycott Jewish students. AUJS, the peak representative body of thousands of Jewish tertiary students across Australia and New Zealand, is a pluralistic organisation committed to engaging Jewish students with political parties and activists across the spectrum.
The fact that the NSW Young Greens have chosen to boycott an opportunity to engage with Jewish students on account of their mistaken beliefs about AUJS’ attitudes towards foreign policy speaks volumes of their problematic attitudes towards the Jewish community.
To reduce Australian Jews entirely to their political perspectives on a conflict occurring overseas, and to erroneously pigeonhole the entire Jewish student community as ‘support(ing) the occupation of Palestine’ demonstrates the deep, systematic prejudices which pervade the NSW Young Greens.
This is in line with the far-left trend where hatred for Israel is so strong that it can result in the antisemitic effect where the Jewish community is boycotted for the supposed crime of self-defining its cultural, ethnic and national identity.
We are deeply concerned that the youth wing of the NSW Greens has a policy of refusing to engage with Jewish students. This makes a mockery of the Greens’ recent support for diversity and multiculturalism in the context of the 18C debate.
We hope the NSW Young Greens are swiftly and clearly condemned by the senior party to avoid any suggestion that the Young Greens contempt for the Jewish community is shared by the senior leadership.
AUJS calls on the Leader of the Australian Greens, Richard Di Natale, to unequivocally condemn the executive of the NSW Young Greens and clarify that the Australian Greens want nothing to do with boycotts of the Jewish community.
It is inconceivable that these young leaders could one day become future leaders of the Greens.”
J-Wire contacted Kleon Toffetti who responded: “I will be declining any further comment, or engaging with any media around this.”
In the Aussie Spectator, Mitchell Goff on the hypocrisy and racism of the Greens:
"....Where
in the past left-wing anti-Semites have hid behind the odious Boycott,
Divestment and Sanctions movement or obsessive, pathological criticism
of Israel, this decision pretends to be nothing else but blatant,
unshielded anti-Semitism.
Now, it seems, they just don’t talk to Jews.
This
virulent prejudice is as old as the world itself and it now seems to
reveal itself more publicly in sections of the Left. This sort of
reasoning is how anti-Semitism slips so seamlessly into the sort of
political fascism that if directed at any other group would be the
subject of endless Greens Party condemnation...."
Tardily, a pathetically worded statement (in effect saying that a Jew who disavows Israel is the only acceptable sort of Jew, which is of course the standard position for the Israel-hating Left) from the self-styled "anarcho-communist" Toffetti here
Below, on the Facebook page of an inveterate Israel-hater, a rather delicious example of anti-Israel hypocrisy from another Israel-hater named King and from the liker of his comment, Sizer fan Miranda Pinch, an as-a-Jew Anglican:
In yesterday's London Sunday Times, Anthony Julius and Deborah Lipstadt on the latest Livingstone imbroglio:
"Ken Livingstone, who has been suspended from holding office in the Labour Party following his claims that Adolf Hitler supported Zionism, is a provocateur. That is to say: he doesn’t care about the truth.
To respond to him is already to elevate him; to debate him is a waste of time. Self-pitying, self-admiring, he believes himself to be a truth-telling, special-interest-defying, independent-minded maverick. He cannot be persuaded out of these delusions.
The implication is that anti-semitism is best engaged with at the level of reason, or ignored, following a diagnosis of imbecility. The problem with that approach is that it overlooks the fundamentally malicious nature of anti-semitism. Anti-semites have not reached their conclusions by some faulty line of reasoning that can be corrected. As if Livingstone, when presented with the historical record would say: Oh I see! Gosh, I got it wrong!
Livingstone and people like him conform to a familiar pre-1933 – that is to say pre-Holocaust – type of anti-semite. This kind of anti-semite lived among journalists, politicians and others with access to newspapers, radio stations and other public forums. They could be relied upon to see the Jews behind every scandal, to give a “Jewish twist” to any issue of public concern.
When criticised, they dismissed their critics as in the pay of the special interests that they had exposed. Of course their enemies attacked them: didn’t that prove they were on the right track?
They mostly appealed to constituencies liable to resentment at others’ perceived success. They tended to cast themselves as oppositionists, progressives. Their constituents were down, when they should be up. The Jews were up, when they should be down. Why was this so? A ready answer was always provided.
This explains much in Livingstone’s own career. He found his pleasure in anti-semitic asides mostly in the long years of his own political opposition.
The Times, 7 April 2017
There are three questions that have been raised by the sorry affair. The first question is: does anything that Livingstone has said raise any interesting historiographical issues? The answer is no.
The second question is: why is the Labour Party unable to address the shame that his continued membership brings upon it? The answer to that is that his tastes are shared by too large a fraction of the party — or too large a fraction, at least, of its governing bodies.
And the third question: why are we unable to recognise Livingstone for what he is? The answer lies in the history of anti-semitism. If anti-semitism blinds people to the world, then the recent history of anti-semitism has blinded people to its earlier history. Specifically, the Holocaust has blinded us to the pre-Holocaust diversity of anti-semites. There any many species in the anti-semitic bestiary.
Anti-semitism has right-wing versions, but also leftist ones
There are religious versions – principally, Christian versions, and at least one Muslim version; political versions – principally, right-wing versions, but also liberal and leftist ones. And yet Hitler’s programme of genocide has come to define anti-semitism. It is as if the horror of Hitler’s mass murder of Jews has erased the assaults and exclusions, the slurs and defamations that conditioned their existence before Nazism. The pre-Nazi history of anti-semitism has been lost; non-Nazi contemporary anti-semitisms are inadequately acknowledged, when not altogether defined out of existence.
Imagine these various kinds of anti-semites as denizens of an ugly zoo. And imagine that they flourish there, attended by zoo keepers – let them stand as a sympathetic or neutral “state”. At different times, some beasts will flourish more than others. Some will draw the attention of visitors more than others. But they co-exist – the social anti-semites, the progressives, the Christian and Muslim and secular anti-semites, the reactionaries.
Then suppose that one night, while the management of the zoo sleeps, the ugliest and most dangerous of them all, the exterminationist anti-semite, breaks out of his cage and goes on a rampage in the town. After bloody battles, he is destroyed. The zoo itself is wrecked; many of the other beasts die or go into hiding. One or two, appalled by what has happened, abandon their home.
In due course, the townspeople forget about the zoo’s history; they remember only the moment of the rampage. In their minds, where once there was a variety of anti-semites, different in menace and in intensity of conviction, now there is just one type – and he is dead.
Quietly, patiently, with the assistance of the returning zoo keepers, the other beasts begin their work of reconstruction, inviting in other beasts from other zoos. The townspeople stop going to the zoo. And then one day, they wake up to find that it is flourishing once again."
Another video (not brand new but a two-year-old classic), wishing Jewish readers Chag Sameach:
Very interesting 26-minute video re the Rambam from Rabbi Lord Sachs:
Or perhaps I should say "wayward wimmin". After all, they are all feminists.
Then again, what kind of feminism is it which would support BDS against the nation in the Middle East that has done more for gender equality than any other, and which was the first in the region (i.e. from its inception in 1948) to give Arab women the vote?
What psychosis motivates the extreme leftists who've hijacked the women's movement as they have hijacked certain Protestant churches and imposed upon them that warped worldview that imperils Western society and gives aid and comfort to its enemies?
Here's some of the whacko weirdness:
BDS is a feminist issue
The National Women's Studies Association (NWSA), the largest academic feminist organisation in North America ... November 25 will mark the last day for its members to vote electronically on a resolution urging an endorsement of the 2005 call by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) against the state of Israel.
The resolution calls on NWSA to join various academic associations that have adopted similar motions in the past few years, including this week's overwhelming support for a boycott motion from the American Anthropological Association, at the NWSA's annual national conference; the American Studies Association; the Association for Asian American Studies; the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association; and the Critical Ethnic Studies Association.
Specifically, the resolution asks feminist academics in North America to stand against "the injustice and violence, including sexual and gender-based violence, perpetrated against Palestinians and other Arabs in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, within Israel and in the Golan Heights, as well as the colonial displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians during the 1948 Nakba".
Drawing on feminist commitments to anticolonial solidarity struggles against historical and ongoing forms of injustice, the resolution rests on a simple and yet powerful claim: that to remain silent in the face of the myriad indignities, injustices and violence that Palestinians are subjected to at the hands of the Israeli occupation is to side with the oppressor.
It thus makes it clear that the boycott of the colonising Israeli state - a state that targets Palestinians, curtails their life opportunities and choices, and orchestrates their incarceration and death - is an act of solidarity shaped by a politics and praxis central to all decolonial feminist projects....
Read more here The wimmin, on the other hand, should read this
And they should see this:
In this brief interview with Henry Greener, left-leaning Australian academic Dr Philip Mendes, co-author of the newly published book BoycottingIsrael is Wrong (which as Mendes notes is aimed at "the moderate Left" and offers a "progressive" solution to the conflict) talks about BDS. (The Peter Slezak mentioned in the video is an Israel-bashing Sydney academic, not to be confused with a Sydney medico of the identical name; Michael Danby, also mentioned, is a staunchly and famously pro-Israel Labor federal MP.)
The Trotsykite chair of the Irish Anti-War Movement (we all know what such movements are often synonyms for, of course, and this one is true to form, targeting the United States and its allies and interests) Richard Boyd Barrett, born in November 1967, is an extreme example of a member of the generations that grew up after the Six Day War and have learned to perceive Israel only as a "military occupier" with no empathy whatever for the dire situation in which Israel has found itself since its foundation due to Arab rejectionists nor appreciation for the humanitarian efforts and breakthroughs wrought by the embattled little Jewish State.
On 9 June in Ireland's Parliament, in which he sits for Dún Laoghaire, he spewed out invective against Israel, cherry-picking unrepresentative firebrand statements attributed to certain Israelis and using them in a shamelessly distorted attempt to demonise the Israeli government and the Israel position as a whole.
This is rich, considering Mr Barrett's apparent support for Hamas as suggested by, for instance, this news item from 2009 which shows him attending an Islamic event in Ireland's capital and questioning Israel's very right to exist:
'Pro-Hamas speakers at a fundraising event held ... in Dublin at the weekend argued that the recent violence in Gaza, in which more than 1,300 Palestinians were killed, was a “victory” because it put the Middle East conflict back on the international agenda and galvanised Muslims worldwide.
The Al-Aqsa Festival, which was headlined “Gaza Victory: The Road to Al-Quds”, drew hundreds of people to the RDS [Royal Dublin Society] Concert Hall on Saturday.
The event, organised by the Palestinian Rights Institute – a body established several years ago by Palestinians living in Ireland, was covered by a TV crew from Al Jazeera’s Arabic-language channel.
Speakers included Azzam Tamimi, the Palestinian director of the London-based Institute of Islamic Political Thought, and Sheikh Yousef al Baz, a Muslim cleric from the West Bank.
Speaking in Arabic, Sheikh al Baz said the January conflict between Israel and Hamas had “revived the issue of Palestine throughout the world after it was almost dead”, and it had “restored to every Muslim his honour and dignity”. He argued that the war had proved that “resistance is the only way, and not negotiation”.
Hamas is designated a terrorist organisation by the EU and Washington.
Sheikh al Baz’s speech prompted shouts of “Allahu Akbar” from the audience, drawn mostly from the Muslim community. “We supported the jihad and we will do so until Allah grants us victory,” the cleric said. “And that day is not far.”
Pro-Hamas paraphernalia, including DVDs featuring armed Hamas fighters and Sheikh Yassin, the group’s spiritual leader who was assassinated by Israel in 2004, were on sale at the event.
Mr Tamimi, who has written a number of books on Hamas, railed against the US and Europe for insisting that the organisation must meet certain conditions, including recognising Israel’s right to exist, before any engagement occurs.
“Once you recognise Israel, you say to the world that the rape of my country and my people is acceptable,” Mr Tamimi said. “It is a crime against humanity to recognise Israel’s right to exist because that would legitimise the crimes against humanity Israel has committed.” [Emphasis added, here and below]
Had Hamas agreed to meet the conditions laid down by the international community, he said, “they would no longer have my support”.
Hamas, Mr Tamimi argued, was “an alternative to those who sold out” and it “represents our dream” as the “true representative of the Palestinian voice”.
“When the world opposes Hamas, it opposes Palestinian self-determination,” he said, adding that the international community must recognise the “legitimacy Hamas has gained through resistance and elections”.
Branding the EU as “cowards” for not engaging with Hamas, Mr Tamimi added: “Hamas is who the world should be talking to if it is serious about solving the Palestinian issue.”
Later, Mr Tamimi drew applause when he praised insurgents in Iraq and the Taliban in Afghanistan. He said he disagreed with the Taliban’s views on certain matters, but added: “With regard to their attitudes to liberation I say ‘Long live the Taliban’.”
Richard Boyd Barrett of the Irish Anti-War Movement told attendees that it was “entirely legitimate” to argue that “Israel has no right to exist” because “it is not a normal state but a state built on violence, oppression and apartheid”.
“We must convince people that [Israel] has no right to exist as long as it denies rights to Palestinians,” he added.
Organisers told The Irish Times that the €7,000 raised at the event would be given to Human Appeal International, a registered charity with offices in Manchester.
Human Appeal International was one of 36 organisations banned by the Israeli government last year due to alleged links with Hamas.'
The "Taoiseach" to whom his remarks are addressed is the prime minister of Ireland, Enda Kelly, who as requested by Barrett gives his reaction to the statements as quoted:
I've been down with flu, and have hardly felt like blogging or anything else, but now I've finally looked at the following video that Ian told me about a few days ago, I can only regret not having been able to do so before. By now most readers will perhaps have seen this delicious take-down by a familiar pro-Israel young Londoner of Iraqi background of anti-Israel lefties' sheer hypocrisy in demonising the only true democracy in the Middle East.
The sourpuss look on the faces of the female anti-Israel UK Greens as he starts to speak is a tonic in itself, although the sound of female cackling is certainly not funny, given the point he's making.
These females should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves.
And now, from the anti-Israel foot soldiers of the Australian Greens' Party, the sound of much fury on social media regarding the pro-Israel stance, reiterated in an an interview with the Australian Jewish News, of the party's new leader, Richard Di Natale [pictured]:
'.... Di Natale reiterated his support for a two-state solution.
“That’s my view, it’s the party’s position, it’s a view I’ve always held,” he said.
“Most people who have followed this issue and care about it would acknowledge that there really isn’t any other alternative.”
Asked whether Abbas should recognise Israel’s existence as a Jewish state, Di Natale replied: “Of course. How can you have a two-state solution when you refuse to acknowledge the right of one state to exist? It’s patently nonsense.”
He also reaffirmed the Australian Greens’ rejection of the anti-Israel Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, in spite of the fact that Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon supports it.
“It’s just not the party’s position,” he said. “Some time ago we made a very clear statement that we didn’t believe that this was a pathway to peace.” ....'
And that's not all that's put the haters' noses out of joint. For example, there's this:
'Di Natale also expressed admiration for Israel’s advances in environmental technology, particularly in the field of water-saving.
“Israelis are at the forefront of innovative technologies around that. Why wouldn’t we be learning from some of the new technologies that the Israelis have developed?” he asked. “If only Australia took a leaf out of their book.” ....'
As for anti-Israel Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon, during Britain's recent general election, she was willing the safe return at the polls in Brighton of Caroline Lucas, the former leader of the UK Greens and the party's first MP, with a similar record of fierce hostility to Israel, phoning Lucas's campaign office with encouraging messages. She got her wish, but fellow Sydneysider, the singularly inept and uncharismatic present leader Natalie Bennett, was of course soundly trounced at the UK polls.
One more item that surface during my flu-induced stupor, None too cogent comments regarding Western pro-Palestinian feeling by the egregious Jon Snow of Britain's Channel 4. He claims that people in the West are anti-Israel because Israel because Israelis are seen as fellow white men behaving badly.
But he of course too readily dismisses the antisemitic factor, fails to acknowledge the bad behaviour on the Palestinian side, forgets that at least half the Israel Jewish population are of non-Ashkenazi background, and does not take into consideration the fact that many Western supporters of Israel rest that support on the fact that the Israelis' values are European values. What we should surely be asking is why so many Western Israel-haters (including the warped women in the above video) are dedicated to the weakening if not the destruction of a nation whose values are Western ones.
And, fresh off the smorgasbord, the latest piece of Israel-bashing by British anti-Israel campaigner (or should that be "anti-Israel professional?") Ben White:
What's Ben's obsession with Israel about? it might be asked.
American campus anti-Israel activity some 40 years later, here and below
The respected American scholar Ruth Wisse has written a lengthy and important article on antisemitism/anti-Israelism on US campuses in which she observes, inter alia:
'[W]hy should anti-Semitism flourish in the sweet groves of academe rather than in the fouler corridors of power? How does intolerance for a Jewish state thrive in the very institutions that advertise their tolerance for threatened minorities?.... On what grounds do American universities, considered liberal to a fault, assail the only liberal democracy in that part of the world?
The question harbors its answer. Israel is attacked not despite but on account of its liberal democracy and its buoyant pluralistic culture: two commodities held in notable disesteem in the nominally liberal but in fact anti-liberal environment of the contemporary American university. The boycotters wrap themselves in the mantle of free speech only to silence those who stand for the kind of genuine individual and human rights that flourish in Israel. They shout down liberal speakers like Israel’s ambassador to the United States just as they shout down and shut out champions of Muslim women’s rights.
In these respects, today’s anti-Israel campus coalitions are heirs to the anti-liberal coalitions that raged in the 1960s against the war in Vietnam and against the traditional American values embedded in America’s constitutional culture....
Wholly negative in its goals—indeed, a prototype of the negative political campaign—anti-Semitism promised and still promises progress not through social reform, which must be seen to keep its promises, but through destruction, symbolized in the destruction of what the Jews have attained.
The anti-Semitic component of modern anti-liberal ideologies like fascism, Communism, pan-Arabism, and now Islamism has allowed alliances to form among otherwise competing groups, thereby facilitating anti-Semitism’s acceptance and normalization and in turn gaining for these ideologies a greater durability than they could likely achieve without it. On the merits, Arab and Muslim students could never have persuaded their American peers to sympathize with repressive regimes and homegrown terrorists; blaming the Jews for these and other deformities was the key that unlocked the door.
In the campus culture of victimhood ... someone must be cast as the invader. It was thus inherent in the “logic” of left-wing campus politics that the anti-American revolutionaries of yesteryear would morph into the so-called pro-Palestinian protesters of today; once Arab and Muslim students began pressing the case against Israel in the familiar terms of victimized natives vs. Western imperialists, they filled the vacuum previously occupied by Students for a Democratic Society. It tells us much that the cause of anti-Zionism, forged and perfected in Stalinist Russia, should have become the strongest legacy of the phony “idealism” of ’60s radicals, and anti-Jewish campus coalitions their logical heirs....'
Read the entire brilliant, disturbing, insightful, wide-ranging article here
It seems even one or two of Australia's most ardent leftist Israel-bashers (or at any rate one or two of the Jewish ones) think the principal screecher among the mob of ferals who on Wednesday invaded Colonel Kemp's lecture at Sydney University – a female to boot – erred in condemning the recent campus ban on speakers from the notorious group Hizb-ut Tahrir.
Watch and hear her at around 0.43 on the video (see my last post but one).
The strange leftist mindset revealed.
First, by one of the student demonstrators:
Secondly, by the Wollongong academic who some time ago walked from Sydney to Canberra to deliver an anti-Israel petition to federal parliament:
(The latter is Jewish, by the way.)
As Sydney Daily Telegraph blogger Tim Blair has observed:
"Note the description of Hizb ut-Tahrir from the main shouter: it is merely an “outspoken Islamic organisation.” Yeah, right."
Now here's a bit of welcome sense from Larry Stillman of the leftwing Israel-bashing Australian Jewish Democratic Society, in a discussion with a bunch of fellow-Jewish lefties on Facebook (the reference to Professor Jake Lynch's wallet, by the way, concerns this alleged but perhaps misinterpreted incident)*:
Not only are Hizb ut-Tahrir "no friends of progressive women" (indeed, of any women unwilling to be demeaned and used as chattels and to be regarded as inherently inferior to men) but they are certainly no friends to Jews, as seen here as well as in this, the latest video from Sydney in which vicious antisemitism and uninhibited incitement to violence against Jews is displayed:
'NSW Jewish Board of Deputies chief Vic Alhadeff compared the rhetoric to the propaganda of the Islamic State.
He also called on the government to respond swiftly amid fears of cultivating another homegrown terrorist. “This has nothing to do with Israel and is in the same vein of Islamic extremism and incitement to violence that IS peddles,” he said. “It is another wake-up call for authorities to act before these hate-preachers inspire the next Man Monis.”'
*Incidentally, for Colonel Kemp's letter to the vice-chancellor of Sydney University, expressing outrage at the intimidatory and offensive tactics used (including, he says, money thrust into the face of a Jewish student by Professor Lynch), and urging an investigation, see here
In the previous post, Aussie international law expert David Singer, who is of course no stranger to regular readers of this blog, examines Sweden's vote to recognise a Palestinian State. (Latest here)
Meanwhile, this cartoon (at left), mimicking Ikea "easy home assembly" instructions is doing the Israel-delegitimising rounds on social media, with some cock-a-hoop people actually assuming that the company itself issued them, and proclaiming excitedly that they will only buy Ikea products from now on. I'm not sure who originated this cartoon, but reader P (hat tip to you, again, sir) found it on the Facebook page of the appalling, BDS-championing so-called Jewish Voice for Peace organisation.
As David Singer observed not so long ago, in the course of another of his posts, here:
"The incessant media focus on Israel – compounded by misleading and factually incorrect reporting – has materially contributed to inciting the growth of Jew-hatred world-wide. Organisations such as HonestReporting and CAMERA expose inaccurate reports appearing daily in the most widely read and supposedly reputable international newspapers, television stations, radio networks and on-line publications....
[Richard] Falk's discredited assertion that Israel is a “special case” setting it apart from the world community for special treatment encourages
the media to keep focusing disproportionately on Israel
Arab and Islamic countries justifying their continuing non-recognition of Israel
Jew-haters and self-hating Jews world-wide maintaining their campaigns denigrating and delegitimising Israel.
“Jews are always good for news” needs an urgent media rethink and policy overhaul – if increasing Jew-hatred world-wide is to be effectively silenced."
As another Aussie, Isi Leibler, now a proud Israeli, has observed, inter alia, regarding the recent British House of Commons' vote to recognise a Palestinian State :
'It reflects a growing trend
among European countries to encourage Palestinian Authority President
Mahmoud Abbas to pursue his intransigent policy, rejecting meaningful
negotiations, refusing to make any concessions and proceeding on the
supposition that he has international support to bring Israel to its
knees. Regrettably, over the past few months, the Obama administration
has been widely perceived as giving a wink to the Europeans to pursue
policies toward Israel along these lines, which neither American public
opinion nor Congress would endorse.
That such a resolution was
even contemplated during the regional meltdown of the past few months
has created an Alice-in-Wonderland environment – especially as it failed
to even pay lip service to the obligations of the Palestinians. Nor did
it acknowledge that both Yasser Arafat and current “peace partner”
Mahmoud Abbas rejected offers of 95 percent of the territories formerly
occupied by the Jordanians.
Abbas continues to incite to violence
and hate and his Fatah party still calls for the destruction of the
Jewish state. In recent months, the official PA TV revived the medieval
blood libel accusing Jews of using the blood of Palestinian children to
make matzot for Passover, promoted The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
and alleged that Israel was poisoning Palestinian water wells. Abbas
continues to glorify mass murderers and insists that there will never be
an agreement unless Israel accepts the right of return of the five
million descendants of Arab refugees, which would entail the end of
Israel as a Jewish state. He also reaffirmed his union with Hamas – the
globally designated terrorist organization.
The UK parliamentary
resolution effectively endorses a state in which the genocidal Hamas
occupies a central role and which, according to polls, would emerge
victorious in an election. To make matters worse, Abbas has publicly
stated that should that occur, he would hand over control of the state
to Hamas.
British socialists who voted for the resolution totally
disregarded Israel’s security concerns by supporting the establishment
of a state based on the 1949 armistice lines. The resolution does not
even require Hamas to amend its charter calling for the destruction of
Israel and the murder of Jews throughout the world – a charter that the
Nazis would proudly have supported. Nor did it call for demilitarization
and cessation of hostilities against Israeli civilians.
Bevin (Time, 18 Feb. 1946)
The
implications of passing such a resolution are harrowing, exceeding the
worst excesses of perfidious Albion when the anti-Semitic British
foreign secretary Ernest Bevin displayed his hostility to the Jews
during the last years of the mandate.
One cannot justify such
behavior on the basis of ignorance. Clearly, the motivations represent a
combination of electoral opportunism, leftist political correctness
which transforms Israel the victim into the aggressor, cultural
relativism which no longer distinguishes between good and evil and
promotes moral equivalency; and above all, an indisputable odor of
outright anti-Semitism.
Some remarks made in the course of the debate were even more despicable than the resolution itself.
There
were renewed demands for an arms embargo, calls to intensify boycott,
divestment and sanction campaigns and to suspend the EU-Israel
Association Agreement.
There were repeated condemnations of
Israel for promoting racism and practicing apartheid. This, despite the
fact that 20% of Israel’s population is comprised of Arabs who are
granted the same constitutional rights and privileges as Jewish
Israelis.
One need only visit a Jerusalem hospital or shopping
mall to appreciate how absurd it is to accuse Israel of apartheid. In
contrast, Abbas has made it clear that a Palestinian state would be
Judenrein and that he would not tolerate “the presence of a single
Israeli – civilian or soldier – on our lands.” What is that if not
ethnic cleansing? ....
Demonization of Israel concentrated on settlement
policies, described in the debate as “the colonization of another
country.”....
The facts are that the settlements comprise a mere
3% of the territories previously occupied by Jordan; there have been no
new settlements created over the past decade; prime minister Ariel
Sharon unilaterally withdrew from all settlements in the Gaza Strip – an
area that was subsequently transformed into a launching pad for rocket
attacks against Israeli civilians.
The only “settlement
construction” has essentially related to natural growth in east
Jerusalem and the existing blocs, which will undisputedly always remain
part of Israel. The growth has been to cater for population expansion
and no Palestinians were displaced because of the construction....'
Needless to say, among those pushing for, and obviously triumphally welcoming, parliamentary recognition of a Palestinian State, apart from the rabid Israel-haters of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and similar secular groups, were such naive if well-meaning types as the [Anglican] Bishop of Coventry, Christopher Cocksworth, and the Roman Catholic Bishop of Clifton, Declan Lang, while Jeremy Moodey, who heads the Christian NGO Embrace the Middle East, declared that
'the Government should not ignore the
result of the vote: "Britain has done much to contribute to the current
mess . . . [including] this current Government's near unqualified
support for Israel. Some 64 years after we recognised Israel, the
British Parliament has now finally acknowledged that Palestinians are
entitled to their own state."'
Isi Leibler, towards the end of the above-mentioned article, observed:
"There is some light at the end of the tunnel.
The
barbaric behavior of Islamic fundamentalists is beginning to penetrate
the consciousness of the Western world, which will hopefully ultimately
recognize that Hamas is indeed a component of the global Islamic
fundamentalist threat."
But as he also observed, the Commons' vote
'"reflects
the electoral influence of Muslim migrants and confirms that
anti-Israelism is now embedded in the DNA of the Left. But above all, it
reveals the reality that anti-Semitism has remained an integral
component of British and European society, which is now expressed as
hatred of the Jewish state."
Below is Melanie Phillips telling it like it is to Ezra Levant in Canada.
She talks of "this terrible nexus of non-Islamic liberals" supporting Islamic Israel-hatred. "In the West we have become paralysed ... by ... multicultural political correctness .... Israel has become a pariah state ... Israel ... which is obsessed by human rights .... Antisemitism is at the root of this [Islamic hatred and rejection of Israel] .... It's about Jews ... Antisemitism is the signature marker of a derangement" ... but owing to extreme political correctness (which has invented "Islamophobia" along with the insistence that Muslims are "victims") necessary free speech regarding Islam is muzzled and Western liberals fail to deplore in Islamism what Western liberals would deplore in Nazism.
As Ms Phillips observes, Muslims enjoy freedom of worship in Israel, yet the only country in the region guaranteeing rights of religious minorities is demonised by Western liberals despite that.
The death this week of Gough Whitlam (1916-2014), prime minister of Australia from 1973-75, has of course prompted many obituaries and reminiscences.
Popular columnist Andrew Bolt sums up Whitlam well here:
'Gough Whitlam was lucky his government was sacked in 1975. To our cultural elite, that turned him from a failure to a martyr.
That allowed the ruin he caused to gradually become obscured by the giant shadow of his myth. More ominously, it also allowed Labor to gradually forget what it learned, painfully, from Whitlam’s disasters.
So Labor today weeps for Whitlam and much of the media with it. The ABC’s massive coverage in particular has resembled the state-ordered mourning for a socialist dictator....
Aloof and arrogant, Whitlam was no man of the people and no prime minister was shunned by them so comprehensively — twice.
Whitlam ruled chaotically for just two years and 11 months until he was sacked by governor-general Sir John Kerr to end a damaging stalemate in the Senate, where the Opposition had cut off the scandal-racked government’s money.
The Left raged at the dismissal. On Monday, hours before Whitlam died, prize-winning author Peter Carey was still spluttering on the ABC that his sacking was a wicked conspiracy — “the US government destabilised and helped overthrow our elected government”.
But at the election the public wholeheartedly backed Kerr’s verdict, destroying Labor in a 44 per cent to 56 wipeout. Whitlam the martyr — bellowing “maintain the rage” — nevertheless held on to the Labor leadership, convinced he’d be seen in time as more sinned against than sinning. Instead, two years later the public made clear to Whitlam that he really, really wasn’t wanted, rejecting Labor again by another massive margin, 45 to 55....
Yes, Whitlam made ambitious changes widely accepted as good, bringing in need-based funding for schools, transferring Crown lands to traditional owners, allowing no-fault divorce, legislating for equal pay for women, ending gerrymanders, decriminalising homosexuality and getting sewerage systems to many suburbs. He blew fresh air into power’s musty corridors and to many made Australia seem bigger, broader and brighter.
But other “reforms” came at a cost we’re haven’t yet counted....'
And what of Whitlam's attitude to Israel?
Photo credit: Sydney Morning Herald
Let me say that there was a delicious irony in the fact that the person who, in iconic footage (see photo, right) charged with reading out the proclamation of Whitlam's controversial dismissal from office by Governor-General Sir John Kerr, happened to be a Jew, (Sir) David Smith, who was Kerr's official secretary (see a snippet regarding Sir David's personal view of Whitlam here).
Whitlam's deep hostility to Israel is described at some length in Professor W. D. (Bill) Rubinstein's volume 2 of The Jews in Australia: A Thematic History, published in1999 (the professor, of course, is no stranger to regular readers of my blog, having from time to time contributed guest posts to it).
Below is what he writes about Whitlam (pages 541-45) although there are plenty of other references scattered about the volume.
"Whitlam alone of all post-1948 [Australian] Prime Ministers was not merely regarded as no friend of the Jewish community, but as an enemy, and at the 1975 General Election most Australian Jewish leaders recommended a vote for the Coalition [i.e. the Opposition, consisting of Malcolm Fraser's Liberals and their Country Party allies] – the only time in history Australian Jewish leaders expressed a party political preference.
There was little or nothing in Whitlam's background to suggest any overt hostility to Israel or Jewish interests. An intelligent, sophisticated, and articulate barrister, Whitlam (b. 1916) came from the same generation of moderate social democrats as Harold Wilson and Hubert Humphrey who remembered the Holocaust and were almost instinctively Zionist. By 1971, Whitlam had visited Israel four times, and had Jewish confidantes such as Jim Spigelman and Peter Wilenski. Yet he proved hostile to Jewish interests on a variety of key issues: directly on the Middle East War of 1973, the ill-fated Iraqi Loans Affair of 1975, and PLO representation in Australia, and indirectly over the Khemlani Loans Affair of the previous year.
Whitlam's conflict with the Jewish community first emerged during the Yom Kippur War of 1973, when his Government's 'even-handed' position slipped into gratuitous condemnation of Israel, according to most Jewish leaders. This perception was greatly aggravated in early 1974 when Australia criticised Israel at the United Nations for a reprisal raid on PLO bases in southern Lebanon in retaliation for the PLO's terror attack on Kiryat Shemona in southern Lebanon. A now-legendary meeting between Whitlam and Jewish leaders in May 1974 failed to clear the air; it was described in a Jewish community press release at the time as 'disappointing and unacceptable,' and was, in fact, acrimonious to a degree that is still recounted by those present many years later, Whitlam noting inter alia that the 'Jewish community, because of its wealth and its cohesion has been able to make its point of view well understood. The Arab has not. I believe it would be wise for the Jewish community to realise that the Arab community is becoming more articulate,' and claiming that the Israeli raid was 'not only a raid, but a crime'.
The Iraqi Loans Affair was, in many respects, more inexplicable and outrageous than Whitlam's stand on the 1973 war. On 16 November 1975, five days after Whitlam's celebrated dismissal by Sir John Kerr, David Combe, the ALP [Australian Labor Party] National Secretary, was drawn aside at an ALP meeting by pro-Arab activist and extreme left-wing figure in the ALP Bill Hartley and told that Hartley believed the ALP could borrow a substantial sum (usually stated to be $500,000) from Iraq to finance its election expenses in the pending election. In the words of Alan Reid [In his book The Whitlam Venture, published in 1976]:
'Combe told Whitlam of Hartley's proposal. Both men knew that Hartley, who functioned as a spokesman for the pro-Arab, anti-Israel cause in Australia, had some very influential Middle East connections. The three men went off to a side office ... Hartley put his proposal. Whitlam approved it.'
As his go-betweens, Hartley used Reuben Scarf, a Lebanese-Australian businessman who had corresponded with Whitlam over the admission of PLO representatives to Australia, and one Henry Fischer, a Sydney businessman with a long record of association with ultra right-wing and racist causes. Secret negotiations ensued between the Arabs, Hartley and his intermediaries, and Whitlam. Whitlam met Fischer on several occasions, as well as Iraqi representatives who flew to Australia for this purpose. No money arrived by election day (11 December 1975) but, according to Alan Reid, probably did so in 1976. As Reid noted:
'the story did not become public knowledge until early in 1976.
Whitlam was later to claim that th money would not have changed his foreign policy approach... [B]ut if Arab sources were to provide large amounts of money, they would not be providing such amounts for nothing. They would undoubtedly feel themselves entitled to something in return, if only a change in emphasis in an ALP government's so-called 'even handed' Middle East policy, a change that would be of benefit to the anti-Israel cause.'
A former ALP minister, Kim Beazley, was even franker when he stated, of the Iraqi Loans Affair, that
'it would be inevitable for the Australian Jewish community to regard any such [Iraqi] money as being in effect blood-money that might be paid for, ultimately, in Israeli blood'.
The Iraqi Loans Affair was not, of course the first entanglement by the Whitlam government with vast amounts of Arab money. In the more celebrated Khemlani Loans Affair of 1974, the Australian government sought to borrow US$4billion from shady Arab sources, repayable in a lump sum of US$18billion after twenty years. Whitlam's hostility to Israel and the 'Jewish lobby' continued vocally after he resigned the ALP's leadership in 1977. In May 1979 he told a lecture audience at Harvard University that the United States was being
'dragged through the nose' by Israel, and unambiguously supported a Palestinian homeland in the Middle East. In 1980 he accused the Australian Jewish community of 'crude political blackmail of spokesmen and letter writers from the Jewish community'.
There has been much speculation as to the reasons for Whitlam's stance. Whitlam, it has been claimed in print, cynically calculated that there were more Moslem votes in Australia than Jewish votes. In 1978 Don Chipp noted to his biographer:
'In later years, however, I found that expediency had made its way into [Whitlam's] principles. I remember being disappointed in him recently when in my presence he advocated a hard anti-Israel line, only for the reason that he believed that there are now more pro-Arab than Jewish voters in Australia'.
Remarkably – and oblivious to the deep cynicism underlying this statement – Whitlam repeated this view even more explicitly in his autobiography, published in 1985:
'By the time of the 1972 elections there were as many Arabs as Jews in Australia. While the Arabs were not as articulate and established as the Jews they were as important in as many individual electorates as the Jews'....
Professor Rubinstein's narrative points out at that stage that the accuracy of Whitlam 's statement regarding the number of Arabs in Australia at that time is "highly arguable," most Muslims in Australia being Turks, Pakistanis, Yugoslavs and Malays. He continues:
At a Canberra Press Club address to mark the launching of his book on 11 November 1985 [the tenth anniversary of "The Dismissal"] Whitlam was asked about the 'blackmail references in it. He stated:
'the blackmail was exercised by some heroes in the Australian Jewish community on the other side of the world from the hostilities, that we should support Israel in the dispute between Israel and its neighbours... Now if I should enlarge on this, since then, people in Australia should realise that there are now as many Arabs as Jews in Australia. There are as many Moslems as Jews ...'
Whitlam went on to boast that as Australian Ambassador to UNESCO he changed Australia's vote in an anti-Israel direction on resolutions condemning 'excavations of archaeological purposes in the Old City of Jerusalem and ... the harassment of the universities in the occupied Arab territories' – both clear-cut examples of purely propagandistic motions contrived by the Arab-Communist-Third Wold bloc to humiliate Israel of the type which has done so much harm in the West to the reputation of neutral international bodies such as UNESCO.
Here the professor quotes Bill Hartley at length, regarding Whitlam's support for what Hartley noted were 'the growing links between the Libyan and the Australian people'. The narrative continues:
More deeply, Whitlam clearly went beyond the traditional western social democratic stance towards Israel to support for a more radical position favouring the Third World and the anti-Zionist position found so often among Third World states, especially those with substantial Moslem populations. Whitlam's foreign policy while Prime Minister was quasi-neutralist and often, implcitly or explicitly, anti-American; after Labor's return to power in 1983 Whitlam was appointed Ambassador to UNESCO, where he resolutely defended the corrupt leadership of UNESCO President M'Bow and its anti-Western stance which led to the withdrawal of the United States and Britain from that organisation. Whitlam's stance was highly illustrative of the transformation of the geo-political position of Israel and the Jewish people in the contemporary world, with attack and hostility coming from the Left rather than the Far Right....'
