The Destruction of the Bedrock Values of Western Civilisation

Many readers will already  have discovered this interview with Marvellous Melanie, but for those who haven't, it's a 50-minute must-hear  (no need to stay glued to the screen).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asQ8KFrZY84

Hear her tell, inter alia, why antisemitism and anti-Zionism made her leave The Guardian ...

Islamophobia? Not on Our Watch, insist the UK's Trembling Israelites

It seems hard to believe (actually, perhaps it doesn't, given today's onslaught on the Judeo-Christian tradition and the consequent neglect in schools of scriptural teaching) that people actually grew up thinking that Islam preceded Judaism and Christianity, but some viewers of this video are claiming just that!

It seems hard to believe, given the zeal with which the Left attacks male sexists of the Western kind, that they, with honorable exceptions, turns a blind eye to such excrescences as these, committed by Muslim men against non-Muslim females.

It seems especially hard to believe that in Britain Jewish leaders, with honorable exceptions, are so lily-livered that they are prepared to undermine one of the most courageous, astute and perspicacious of Jewish commentators on the current scene, namely that wonderful lady Melanie Phillips, in their anxiety not to transgress political correctness.

Cerebral British blogger Edgar Davidson pulls no punches in his indictment of such cravenness.  He calls Jewish Chronicle [JC] editor Stephen Pollard "an idiot", for instance, and thunders inter alia:

'Pollard is part of the elitist clique who think they know what’s best for British Jews (and he’s by no means the worst). We have seen with the recent decision by the Jewish 'leadership'  to demonize and silence Colonel Richard Kemp and Melanie Phillips (see articles by Jonathan Hoffman and David Collier about this), that they will not tolerate anybody who dares raise concerns about Islamic antisemitism and terrorism.

They have bought into the whole "Islamophobia" narrative in an attempt to appease people like Baroness Warsi (who claims to oppose antisemitism while being a vicious enemy of the Jewish state, whipping up antisemitic hatred of it among British Muslims).

 What started with the demonization of Tommy Robinson, Geert Wilders, Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer (all true friends of Israel and the Jewish people) and then Katie Hopkins and Douglas Murray, was never going to end with just them. Now they seek to silence anybody on the 'right' of politics who raises these concerns and even accuse anybody who supports them of being 'racists'.  So, while many of the Jewish community's best friends are shunned by the Jewish leadership, that same leadership is happy to work with (and even invite to communal events): Israel-hating agitators like Warsi, antisemitic anti-Israel leftist Muslims like Naz Shah, and any number of left-wing politicians and activists who supported both Corbyn and the boycott campaign against Israel.

The Board of Deputies, The Jewish Leadership Council, CST [Community Security Trust], the JC and even recently the CAA [Campaign Against Antisemitism] are all complicit in the "Islamophobia" narrative. They are failing Britan's Jews.'  [Emphasis added]

It might be added that realists in Australia who tell things as they are (members of the Australian Jewish Association, for example, and distinguished scholars of Islam like the Anglican clergyman Rev. Mark Durie) are also vilified as "Islamophobes" by Jewish "leaders" who should know better.

With regard to Melanie Phillips (see her article here), a thread recently appeared on Twitter, in response to this cri-de-coeur by a Scottish convert revert to Islam, "journalist" (check out the grammar!) Alex Tiffin:

Despite (or perhaps because of) British Jews' well-founded fear of the antisemitism of the hard left exemplified by Corbyn and his henchmen and henchwomen of the hard left, Tiffin attracted such replies as these:

Oh!

I almost forgot to mention that Mr Tiffin is none other than a would-be Labour MP, who caused a kerfuffle north of the Border with threats of violence against infidels a few years ago.

Nor have I yet mentioned that one of the posts above was written by someone who apparently joined in the fun and games when (years ago, on an online forum) a toxic Israel-hater abused me so viciously and in such a defamatory, antisemitic and threatening  manner, posting my contact details on pro-Arab sites, and so on,  that the dear old UK police promised to get on the case, only to botch the entire exercise, doing nothing at all, despite knowing the abuser's identity and exact whereabouts and being provided with a copious amount of screenshots that would have comfortably allowed a prosecution (the Mr Plods sat on these until the expiration of the time period in which such evidence could validly be presented in court!) 

Funny old world innit.

Blackburn Blues

When Jews were readmitted to England under the Cromwellian Protectorate, a decision ratified by King Charles II after the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660, they came not as ghettoised, medieval people, but as modern citizens indistinguishable, save for the private expression of religion, from everybody else.

On the European continent the situation was different, still rooted in the past, and in the eighteenth century that icon of the French Enlightenment, Voltaire, was repelled by the Jews' apparent medievalism. 

In the infancy of the nineteenth-century, before Napoleon was prepared to guarantee the Jews of France the civic equality that had been ushered in by the French Revolution, Jewish leaders had to satisfy him that their people deserved French citizenship by meeting the requirements of modernity, assuring him, for example, of their repudiation of polygamy (which in fact had not been practised by European Ashkenazim since the early Middle Ages) and that  their premier allegiance was to France.

This they were easily able to do, and integrated seamlessly into the fabric of France.

How ironic is the situation today, when in old England medievalism and segregation of the kind the Enlightenment swept away, and which had never existed in modern Britain, flourishes in pockets of the country.

Take, for example, Blackburn, Lancashire, where an seemingly inexorable population replacement is taking place by people who seem in many respects mired in medievalism.  We glimpse men strutting ahead of their niqab-clad wives, and hear government adviser Dame Louise Casey fearlessly state what her masters in government apparently did not want to her to express.

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnmI9eFzO9A

Islamophobic?  In this video dating to 2016 Melanie Phillips effortlessly routs Roshan Muhammed Salih (who appears regularly on Iran's Press TV  interviewing demonisers of the Zionist Entity such as Jenny Tonge) when he tries to compare "Islamophobia" to antisemitism. 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4Sr8MZNgDo

Fear of Islamofascism, says Melanie (around 7:05), is "based on evidence and truth; antisemitism is based on lies".

"She Thus Displays Her Profound Ignorance of Jewish, Arab and Middle Eastern History"

Here's Emily Thornberry, Corbyn's shadow foreign secretary, telling Middle East Eye's editor-in-chief David Hearst and columnist Peter Oborne 

"I don’t think we celebrate the Balfour Declaration but I think we have to mark it because I think it was a turning point in the history of that area and I think probably the most important way of marking it is to recognise Palestine"

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uJERCQjQ5U

And here's (hat tip: Christians United for Israel UK) Ms Thornberry in July, clashing with Conservative MPs regarding the the Middle East, Corbyn's "friends" and the recognition of a Palestinian state.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Msh2SqpQvh8

Is it any wonder, then, that  Marvellous Melanie sees Thornberry's stance as emblematic of the malevolence Corbyn's Labour Party is evincing towards Israel and by extension towards the Jewish People?

To quote from Ms Phillips's denunciation:

'When Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn refused to attend this week’s dinner in London to mark the centenary of the Balfour Declaration, a dinner to which Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been invited as the guest of Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May, Corbyn said Labour’s shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry would attend in his place.

Now remarks made by Thornberry inescapably imply that, like Corbyn, she too regrets the fact that Israel was ever created. Instead she supports its mortal enemies whose agenda remains Israel’s destruction....

Her support for the existence of Israel is, by her own lights, conditional on the existence of a state of Palestine. She thus displays her profound ignorance of Jewish, Arab and Middle Eastern history by assuming that people called the Palestinians were entitled to the same promise of a national homeland. ....

And of course, a Palestine state alongside Israel has been on offer repeatedly since 1936 – yet it has been the Arabs and “Palestinians” who have refused it while the Jews have always accepted it. There could be a state of Palestine tomorrow if the Palestinians would accept Israel’s right to exist alongside it. Instead, they want such a state solely in order to destroy Israel altogether....'

Read all of Ms Phillips's article here

Meanwhile, anti-Israel Jewish-blogger-married-to-a-Christian-vicar Robert Cohen ("Micah's  Paradigm Shift") and his friends on social media are celebrating a letter he wrote to the Manchester University authorities:

And:

"This is a Conflict About ...an Exterminatory Attempt to Destroy the Jewish Homeland" (video)

From Jerusalem, on 27 September, Marvellous Melanie talks to Australian journalists Rowan Dean (read his recent pro-Israel remarks here) and Ross Cameron on Sky TV.

The conversation runs from her take on the morally compromised Left through the destructive foolishness of American Jewry's universalistic outlook and thrust ("Jewish values are not universalistic, they are particularist ... they have universalist applications") to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

I wish this 20-minute interview with a wise and courageous woman, a Jewish heroine of our time, could be mandatory viewing for the current crop of leaders of Progressive Judaism in Australia, who seem have hitched their wagon  to every leftist political position going, regardless of the end result. 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=GuTQc9WrAkc

(The sound quality improves after the first few minutes.)

The True Totalitarianism: Marvellous Melanie on Trump's Leftist Demonisers

Nobody says it better ...

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7iWaUoMCko)

"Reaction to Donald Trump's election is like all movements of fanatical believers, religious or secular. It’s totalitarian in its instincts and above all it incites hatred, paranoia and aggression."

Blog and updates: www.melaniephillips.com

Melanie Phillips on Trump's Triumph (video)

 Melanie Phillips, calling Trump's triumph "a kind of populist revolution," inter alia defends him from perceptions of antisemitism and racism, likening the present outrage on the part of the left to the smears of "xenophobia" and "racism" that dogged pro-Brexit voters determined to preserve their culture and restrict illegal immigration.  Historian Simon Schama takes issue ... but Melanie reminds him of the terrible antisemitism on the part of leftists that has exploded under "respectable" non-controversial administrations ...

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSEnq40AX0I)

Marvellous Melanie on British Leftist Antisemitism

Nobody tells it better than Ms Melanie Phillips.  A must-watch (or listen-to) video.

Nearly an hour's worth of footage, but this wonderful woman is worth every minute.

To quote the uploader:

 British Columnist for The Times, Melanie Phillips, critiques attempts
by the Left to equate Antisemitism with Islamophobia, distorting the
truth about Islamism in the process. JBS exclusive coverage of an
ISGAP program from the ISGAP Center in NYC.

"The Problem Is Much Deeper Than ... An Extraordinary Animus Against Israel ... Israel Has Not Taken Seriously The Psychological War Against It"

Writes Middle East analyst Jonathan S. Tobin in the course of an article in Commentary magazine prompted by the Monday's vote in the House of Commons (about which I blogged on Wednesday), following upon Sweden's decision to recognise Palestinian statehood:

'[L]ike the “Free Gaza” demonstrations that rocked European cities this past summer while Hamas rockets rained down on Israeli cities, one has to wonder what exactly those advocating the unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state think they are doing?....

[W]hich Palestine are we talking about?

Is it the Palestine of the Palestinian Authority that currently rules most of the West Bank, albeit under the security blanket of the Israel Defense Forces? ....That’s a Palestine that is supposedly ready to make peace with Israel but which requires the economic and political support of the West in order to survive.

But, in truth, that Palestine is a corrupt kleptocracy run by Mahmoud Abbas, a man currently serving the 10th year of a four-year presidential term. The Fatah-ruled West Bank is a petty tyranny that oppresses and robs Palestinians while raking in billions in economic aid from Europe and the United States. Its leader frequently tells Western and Israeli audiences that he is ready make peace on the basis of a two-state solution, but he also is adamant about being unwilling to recognize the legitimacy of a Jewish state no matter where its borders might be drawn.

But since so much of the anger at Israel is about Gaza, the fact is all too many Europeans seem willing to overlook their usual abhorrence of terrorism and think of Hamas as a legitimate government of the strip, if not as partners with the PA. That Palestine is a brutally repressive Islamist regime that is allied with those seeking to overthrow moderate Arab governments. Like Fatah in the West Bank, it is not interested in bettering the lives of its people. But unlike the PA, which seems mostly interested in profiteering off of foreign aid, Hamas’s sole obsession is in replenishing its stores of rockets and ammunition and rebuilding its terror tunnels so as to be ready the next time it feels another round of fighting with Israel will be to its advantage. Hamas, which is more popular in the West Bank than Abbas and his party, is dedicated to ending the “occupation” but by that term they are referring to pre-1967 Israel, not forcing it to remove Jews from the West Bank or Jerusalem....

Were Europe’s governments or its pro-Palestinian demonstrators truly interested in peace, they would understand that unilateral recognition of independence is a way for the PA to avoid having to talk with Israel. ...If they wanted to support peace, they would tell Abbas to go back to the table with Netanyahu and to be prepared to recognize a Jewish state. They might also encourage him to get rid of Hamas, not become its partner.

[T]alk about recognition of Palestine without first requiring it to make peace with Israel must seen as not merely moral preening at Israel’s expense but a political manifestation of the same anti-Semitic invective that was so common during the “Free Gaza”'

Perversely, it already is, Rachel dear

Earlier this year, speaking in America to The Lawfare Project, the peerless Melanie Phillips explained cogently and compellingly, and with a sure grasp of the historical and political context, why Israel has become, for leftists, their central hate focus, with contributing factors including the fall of Communism, the end of apartheid in South Africa, the emergence of multiculturalism and fear of offending minoritiies*, of the the mindset that patriotism towards one's own nation is racist**, that warfare on behalf of one's own nation is unconscionable,  and that only minorities within society can be victims, and of the doctrine of individual rights – as well as the return of the antisemitic medieval doctrine of Replacement Theology, which held that the Jews had been replaced by the Christians as the people of the Covenant; Replacement Theology has come "roaring back again" in the form of Sabeel and certain Western clergy (like Sizer, although she named no names) denies the Jews' rights to Eretz Israel, promoting instead the notion that the Palestinians are the rightful possessors.

* For grotesque examples in Britain this week see here
and here
** For a bizarre example in Australia this week see here

"The problem is much deeper than an extraordinary animus against Israel," she pointed out.

"It is axiomatic in Britain that Israel is the principal human rights abuser in the world .... [although it is] the one upholder of human rights in the [Middle East] region .... Human Rights ... has become a principal weapon of injustice ... the potential nemesis [of Western culture] ... "

She also pointed out that Israel has in many ways been its worst enemy.  It could and should exploit the emphasis on human rights to its own advantage, persuading a left-indoctrinated  public opinion to the truth of the matter: that far from being the oppressor it is sinned against rather than sinning:

"Israel has a compelling story about human rights ... Israel stands on very firm legal foundations in its occupation and in its settlements policy ....and ... can easily make a compelling case ... Israel [preoccupied by defending itself militarily] has not taken seriosly the psychological war against it...There is no collective endeavour ..."

Ms Phillips lamented Israel's failure to publicise the Levy Report (which Wikipedia introduces thus):

'officially called Report on the Legal Status of Building in Judea and Samaria ... an 89-page report on West Bank settlements published on 9 July 2012, authored by a three member committee headed by former Israeli Supreme Court justice Edmund Levy. The committee, dubbed the "outpost committee", was appointed by Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu in late January 2012 to investigate the legal status of unauthorized West Bank Jewish settlements, but also examined whether the Israeli presence in the West Bank is to be considered an occupation or not.

The report concludes that Israel's presence in the West Bank is not an occupation,[and that the Israeli settlements are legal under international law....'

For the essence of the report in English, see here

And share it around a bit.

Not Fit To Lick Melanie's Boots: The British Board of Deputies Carries On Regardless

O, what a b[r]ummer!

British economics writer Alex Brummer, who is currently City Editor of the Daily Mail, also has a regular column in the Jewish Chronicle.  Mr Brummer, whose columns usually exude good sense, has erred badly in his latest contribution to the latter newspaper, with a most unworthy, myopic attack on one of the few public intellectuals in Britain, Jewish or non-Jewish, possessing the perspicacity and courage to say what needs to be said regarding the threat to the West and to Israel posed by militant Islam and indeed by the creeping islamicisation of non-Islamic societies.

Namely, that truly wonderful woman, Melanie Phillips.

Regular readers of my blog will recall that Ms Phillips recently made a well-justified condemnation of the Board of Deputies' ill-conceived release of a joint statement with the Muslim Council of Britain (see the latter's stance on Gaza here).

My blog quoted the comment on Facebook that Ms Phillips made about the statement.

She subsequently wrote:

'The Board of Deputies last week crossed a line. It stopped being a community embarrassment and became instead a positive menace.

It proudly announced an "unprecedented" joint statement with the Muslim Council of Britain. This said the Middle East conflict should not poison community relations. But it also condemned the "targeting of civilians". The omission of who had supposedly done this targeting implied the Board blamed Israel along with Hamas.

No, protested the Board, this obviously could only relate to Hamas since Israel never targeted civilians. The crucial point, it said, was that the MCB had condemned Hamas.

Oh dear; where to start? The MCB, closely associated with Jamaat-e-Islami extremists and whose affiliated groups often support the Muslim Brotherhood, would never single out Hamas for blame.

UK's Jewish leadership has strengthened its enemies

The Board had enabled it to crow – falsely but plausibly – that the Jews had condemned Israel for war crimes. And the MCB could tell its own people it had not blamed Hamas, since the Palestinians were only civilians while all Israelis were military targets.

Worse still, the Board was boasting of its deal with a body which is a front for Islamic extremism and hatred of Israel and the Jews. Its past leaders have described Israel as "the Zionist terrorist state" and claimed that Hamas "stands for freedom".

It reveres Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, who has supported suicide bombings outside Britain and claimed the Torah permits Jews to spill others' blood and seize their money and land.

In 2009, its then deputy secretary general, Daud Abdullah, signed the Istanbul Declaration, which threatened violence against Israel supporters and British troops.

Because the government views it with suspicion, the MCB is now careful to sanitise its language. Even so, its current secretary-general, Shuja Shafi, found it impossible to say on the Today programme that scrawling "Free Gaza" on a synagogue was antisemitic.

Notwithstanding, the Board claims "it gets you nowhere if you only make peace with your friends". Really? Can we expect a historic Board rapprochement with Hamas? Or al Qaeda? Or Iran?

A clue to the Board's idiocy lies elsewhere in the joint statement, which condemns both antisemitism and "Islamophobia" as if these were equal forms of bigotry.

This is a terrible error. While antisemitism is a true prejudice for which there can never be a shred of rational justification, "Islamophobia" is a catch-all phrase used to demonise anyone who makes a legitimate criticism of Islam or Muslims.

So while there may be some who unreasonably hate all Muslims, those who warn about the Islamic jihad or condemn Muslim attacks on women and girls or freedom of speech are condemned as "Islamophobic" to silence such criticism.

Those who point out the virulent antisemitism in Muslim societies are similarly branded. And because the Jewish leadership is desperate to appease Muslims, it is - astoundingly - silent about Muslim antisemitism. Instead, it, too, demonises those who warn against Islamic extremism as "right-wingers" or "Islamophobes".

The Board's spokesman has ludicrously insisted it is right to oppose "Islamophobia" because "racism is racism". It would appear that the Board doesn't even understand that Islam is not a race but a religion.

The Jewish leadership has now invested legitimate criticism of Islam with a status equivalent to the most hateful prejudice in the world. It has thus helped silence criticism of threatening Islamic behaviour and made all in Britain more vulnerable to attack.

Similarly, by awarding a kitemark of respectability to the MCB, it has undermined all who struggle to defend Britain against Islamic extremism. A Muslim academic, Mohammed al Husseini, has expressed his sense of betrayal at the Board's "collaboration" with the MCB.

All decent people, Jews and non-Jews - including truly anti-jihadi Muslims - need to stand shoulder to shoulder against Islamic extremism. Instead, the UK's Jewish leadership has breached the defences and strengthened the foe.'  [Emphasis added]

Particularly odious is Brummer's contention that

 "We are all capable of scouring the worldwide web in search of adverse material that supports our case. Phillips is expert at this and her fondness for conspiracy theories on a range of issues including events in the Middle East are legion"

As one very prominent Anglo-Jewish Zionist who is also a member (yes, there are still members who have not caught the dhimmitude bug) of the Board of Deputies remarks on Facebook:

"Alex Brummer – In defending the indefensible you have resorted to a baseless ad hominem attack on Melanie Phillips...

Resorting to playing the [wo]man rather than the ball simply reveals to all how impossible you find it to defend your case. I really thought you were above such libellous smear tactics. Shame.

 Melanie Phillips is a thorough and principled journalist and possibly the best asset we have in advocating for Israel and fighting antisemitism...

MCB supports BDS but no boycott of the goods of any other country. So how can its condemnation of antisemitism carry any credibility??"

That admirable Deputy also writes:

'Next Sunday there is a motion at Bd Deps: "That the Board supports the Executive in its approval of a joint statement by the Board and the Muslim Council of Britain condemning anti-Semitism"

There are several reasons to oppose the motion.

1. MCB still has as members groups aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood and sympathetic to Hamas. The Board should be allying with moderates like Dr Muhammad Al-Hussaini who has roundly criticised the joint statement.

2. The MCB supports a boycott of Israeli goods. How can a condemnation of antisemitism by an organisation that has an antisemitic policy in place have any credibility whatsoever? And why did the President not see that?

3. The Board should not be giving the MCB credibility – it undermines the government’s strategy of bypassing the MCB as far as tackling extremism is concerned.

4. The MCB’s condemnation of antisemitism is meaningless without its confirmation that it accepts the same definition of antisemitism as the Board’s – namely, the EUMC Definition. I have asked it to confirm – no response.

5. Dr [Shuja] Shafi heads MCB. On the [BBC] “Today” programme he refused three times to accept that daubing “Gaza” on a synagogue wall is antisemitic. [Dr Shafi evidently thought better of this image-breaker when he left the studio; see tweet. Did a panicky Board of Deputies contact him, perchance? If so, he still fell short.  D.A.]

6. One part of the statement was very badly written. It said "The targeting of civilians is completely unacceptable and against our religious traditions". The phrase "against our religious traditions" is in the plural. It therefore includes both Judaism and Islam. It therefore conveys the impression that the Board believes that the IDF targeted civilians, otherwise why the reference to Judaism? (To argue that Hamas' targeting of civilians is against Jewish religious traditions is nonsensical). Of course the Board does not think that the IDF targeted civilians …. but when writing about such a sensitive subject, perception is all important.

7. I am a member of the Board’s Defence Division and one of our responsibilities is interfaith work. Such a potentially controversial statement should have been shown to me and the other members of the Division for comment before it was released. It wasn’t. Yet another example – like the infamous Oxfam project – of the members of a supposedly democratic body being presented with a fait accompli.

If you too oppose the motion please lobby your Deputy to speak and vote against it.' [Emphasis added.]

Jonathan Sacerdoti On Antisemitism in the UK (video) & Melanie Phillips on The Antisemitism Spawned by Gaza (video)

The articulate young British Middle East analyst and commentator explains the background to and purpose of yesterday's huge rally in London calling for "zero tolerance" against antisemitism that, as he says, contained "powerful voices".

More on the rally here

See also Melanie Phillips talking (for nearly an hour) in Israel, "this life-affirming place of hope":

The D[h]im & The Dutiful: "Tragic" says Marvellous Melanie

Recently, in this land Down Under, the Uniting Church (which, incidentally, is not renowned for love and affection towards Israel) held an interfaith meeting on the illustrated theme, coined in response to the "We'll fight radical Islam for 100 years, says ex-Army lead Peter Leahy" headline that which appeared in The Australian on 9 August.

That headline appeared above this report, in which Professor Leahy, a retired lieutenant-general who is director of Canberra University’s National Security Institute and part of the Abbott government’s team carrying out a comprehensive review of Australia's defence,  maintained:

"Australia is involved in the early stages of a war which is likely to last for the rest of the century. We must be ready to protect ourselves and, where necessary, act pre-emptively to neutralise the evident threat. Get ready for a long war....

They [the government] should advance a narrative that explains that radical Islam­ism and the terrorism it breeds at home and abroad will remain a significant threat for the long term, it will require considerable effort, the expenditure of blood and treasure and it will, of necessity, restrict our rights and liberties"....

He said radical Islamists intent on a new world order were already a threat to the survival of nations in the Middle East and Africa.

If the declared caliphate in Syria and Iraq survived, bases would be established there for attacks on the West and that would embolden “home grown” radicals to attempt attacks in Australia. Military action would be needed to eliminate the threat.

Radicals saw the West as “the far enemy” and they were undoubtedly planning more attacks in Australia. Senior intelligence believes the view that the threat posed by radical Islam would pass was “optimistic”....'

All pretty sensible stuff, we may think, particularly in view of the number of Islamic fighters from Australia known to be fighting abroad, including the father of the seven-year-old pictured recently holding a severed head.

But smacking of "media vilification" in the minds of the above-mentioned conference (at which a rabbi, the not widely known Zalman Kastel of Sydney was present) and its supporters, apparently.

For they issued the the following statement, all motherhood and apple pie and good up to a point, though arguably a reckless over-generalisation, which some "as-a-Jews" as well as some of the more naive (or indifferent to Israel, rationality, and to women's rights) among the Jewish community have hastened to append their names:

'As people committed to building a healthy, cohesive and diverse communities in Australia, we have observed with dismay and empathy the way our Muslim friends have been affected by the language and tone of recent political statements and media coverage. We agree with the concerns of Muslim community leaders that the language and policies of our leaders should not marginalise or vilify people of Muslim faith, and that rhetoric used in relation to Australian security and conflicts around the world should not cause further division in our society, or make anyone feel alienated from the nation they call home.

We believe people of Muslim faith are being unfairly smeared in the eyes of the Australian public by both subtle and overt links to violent extremism in political and media discourse.

This month in Sydney; Herald-Sun photo

We know and understand the deep concern and hurt this is causing to our Muslim friends and the risks this kind of generalisation has for social harmony and cohesion.

The violence and values of extremists like ISIS are not representative of the vast majority of Muslim people in Australia, who are characterised better by their commitment to peace, community and mutual respect.

We stand in solidarity with all people who are suffering the results of war, violence and terror around the world, recognising the dignity of all people and their right to enjoy freedom from persecution and oppression.

We celebrate the diversity of the Australian community and recognise the valuable contribution of people of Muslim faith to our culture and community.

We know that vilification and alienation are not the way to peace or social harmony, but that authentic relationships, solidarity, listening, learning and mutual respect go along way to building the kind of community we’d like to live in.'

And now, worse, far worse, we read in the UK Jewish Chronicle, that the d[h]imwitted British Board of Deputies has dutifully undertaken to make common cause with the Muslim Council of Britain:

'Muslim and Jewish leaders have united in calling for stronger collaboration between their communities in the wake of the Gaza conflict.

In an unprecedented joint statement, the Board of Deputies and the Muslim Council of Britain condemned civilian deaths as tragic and called for efforts to avoid them.

They also condemned any expression of antisemitism, Islamophobia and racism generally, calling on both communities to “redouble efforts to work together and get to know one another”.

But the statement was not without controversy, with both sides unable to agree the exact meaning behind one key line.

The line reads: “The targeting of civilians is completely unacceptable and against our religious traditions.” ....'  (See more here)

Rightly comments the great and incomparable Melanie Phillips, who puts what passes for the Anglo-Jewish leadership to shame:

'It is hard to exaggerate the stupidity of the UK Jewish Board of Deputies in what it has just done. It has signed a joint statement with the Muslim Council of Britain condemning antisemitism and Islamophobia and urging that the Middle East conflict should not prevent good community relations in Britain. Apart from the false equivalence between antisemitism and Islamophobia, which equates a metaphysical global derangement – the cause of centuries of pogroms and genocide against the Jews – with a spurious thought-crime invented to silence legitimate criticism of Islam, these were unexceptionable pieties.

However, the statement also contains this passage:

"The death of every civilian is a tragedy, and every effort should be taken to minimise such losses. The targeting of civilians is completely unacceptable and against our religious traditions."

Daily Mail, 25 March 2009

The MCB is an umbrella organisation, a number of whose member groups are aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood and support Hamas. The Board of Deputies may have assumed the second sentence above could only refer to Hamas, since the IDF does not target civilians and goes to great lengths to avoid hurting them wherever possible. But there is no way the MCB would ever suggest that Israel behaves honourably while Hamas does not. It should therefore have been blindingly obvious that the MCB would do what it has immediately done – claim that the Board had agreed with it that both Israel and Hamas had targeted civilians. The Board has thus now enabled the MCB to claim that the UK's Jewish community leadership has condemned Israel for targeting civilians.

Unbelievable. But that's not the full extent of it. The Board seems to be proud that this joint statement is an "unprecedented" achievement. But just look at its new friend.

MCB leaders have in the past strongly supported Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, the spiritual leader of Hamas who supports suicide bombings against Israelis (and previously, British forces in Iraq) and who has also asserted that the Torah permits Jews to spill the blood of others and seize their money and land.

The MCB boycotted Holocaust Memorial Day, for which it was shunned by the British government until it ended its boycott. In 2009, its then deputy secretary general, Daud Abdullah, signed the Istanbul Declaration which threatened violence against Israel supporters and British troops.

In 2005, it offered its condolences to the family of the leading Hamas terrorist Abdul Aziz al Rantissi after he was killed by the Israelis. Its former Secretary-General, Sir Iqbal Sacranie, branded Israel a "Nazi" state, accused it of "murderous leadership", "Zionist brutality" and "the ethnic cleansing of Palestine", and compared Hamas suicide bombers to Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi. Also that year, the BBC TV Panorama programme exposed the influence on the MCB of the Islamist thinker Sayed Maududi, who preached the need for jihad to bring abut the "universal revolution" of Islamic state rule.

In short, it is beyond astounding that the Board of Deputies should have had anything to do with the MCB at all. Its action has also dealt a blow to all who are struggling to deal with Islamic extremism in the UK. For at a stroke the MCB, which in any sane universe should be shunned as a threat not just to Jews but to Britain, has been awarded a kite-mark of respectability and decency by – of all people – the Jews.

The Board of Deputies is not fit for purpose. It has shown that it does not have a clue about the true nature of the threat posed to Jews and to Britain by Islamic extremism. Britain's Jewish community is leaderless at a time when strong, brave and wise leadership has never been more urgently and desperately needed. Tragic.'

As for the often-heard analogy between antisemitism and "Islamophobia", and more specifically that in Europe Muslims are "the new Jews", James Kirchick has a rather splendid refutation here

Seeing Is Believing (videos)

Something stirring down Pallywood way?

Here's brief footage of Israel's ambassador to the UN, slamming that body for trusting Hamas's casualty figures:

For Melanie Phillips on the current media demonisation of Israel see this video.  Nobody explains the reasons better.

Here's Colonel Richard Kemp speaking in Tel Aviv earlier this month.

A lady (with a broad Scots accent that may be hard for some listeners to follow) tells Jonathan Sacerdoti why Sainsbury's in Holborn removed kosher products from its shelves, yet seems not to comprehend his point regarding Halal products.

And, regarding the sometimes perfidious Albion and Israel, be sure to read this!

Melanie Phillips On Christian Anti-Zionism: "The Church is embracing its own assassin—and the West’s potential nemesis"

Marvellous Melanie Phillips has an absolute humdinger of a new article regarding modern manifestations of Christian Jew-hatred.  It's titled "Jesus Was a Palestinian': The Return of Christian Anti-Semitism" and draws on the work of a number of Christian scholars to make its bold, devastating points and draw its alarming, inevitable conclusion.

After a tour de force through the manifestations of contemporary anti-Zionism on the part of an increasingly large and significant part of Christian opinion, combined with Arab and Islamic attempts to de-judaise  Jesus and cast him in the role of a Muslim icon, "Palestinian" prophet and shahid, together with the increasing "Islamisation" of sections of the the Church, she concludes:

'It is the Muslims who are the inheritors of Moses (peace be upon him) and the inheritors of the real Torah that has not been changed. Muslims believe in all of the Prophets, including Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad, peace and blessings of Allah be upon them all. If the followers of Moses have been promised a right to Palestine in the Torah, then the Muslims are the most worthy nation of this.

Christians would seem increasingly to agree.

The really difficult problem is that supersessionism is not some fringe theology but is deeply rooted in Christian thinking. At the most basic level, the Church believes that Christianity superseded Judaism. The Holocaust caused Western churches to rethink this, although those in Eastern countries remained unmoved. But whereas in the 1965 Papal encyclical Nostra Aetate, the Catholics tried openly to face up to and repudiate their own anti-Jewish thinking, the Protestant churches quietly brushed supersessionism under the carpet.

This failure to address the theological roots of Christian anti-Jewish prejudice left the Protestant churches open to the politically opportunistic and revisionist Palestinian application of the doctrine and its use as a weapon against the State of Israel.

In all the uproar over the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement and the campaign to delegitimize Israel, the role of Protestant churches has received scant attention. This is a terrible mistake. The return of replacement theology is of the greatest possible significance to the way Israel is regarded in the West. The Church still has great influence over Western culture. Even in Britain, people think Christian clerics embody integrity, conscience, and truth-telling; when they assert that Israel is a racist, oppressive, aggressive state, they are believed. And in the United States, such is the centrality of Christianity and the Hebrew Bible that if this theological and political slide into untruth and hatred is not stopped, there will be drastic consequences—not just for support of Israel but for American society.

As Christians are murdered by Islamists across the world, some of their churches are directing their passions elsewhere. They are busily rewriting history, constructing a theology out of gross political distortion and lining up once again with historic forces of unfathomable darkness. It is not just the State of Israel that is being threatened as a result. Stamping upon its parent, the Church is embracing its own assassin—and the West’s potential nemesis.'

Read marvellous Melanie's article here

For Israel, Salvation Is From The (Third World) Christians?

Remarks the pro-Israel Christian Middle East Watch in the course of an article critical of the itinerary of the Pope's current visit to the Holy Land:

'In the arena of the Israel-Palestinian conflict ... the Holy See has shown a consistent and unbalanced support for the Palestinians, condemning Israel on a number of occasions for its responses to terrorism and violence (not least in the second intifada) without holding the Palestinians to account for their own actions.

While statements from Rome have been encouraging in overall Christian-Jewish relations, at a local (Middle Eastern) level church representatives have shown a wholehearted support for the anti-Israel BDS (Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions) movement. 

The infamous 2009 “Kairos” document issued by Palestinian Christian leaders encourages Western churches to support boycotts against Israel and has spawned several national supportive “Kairos” organisations around the world. This unbalanced and blatantly anti-Israel document was signed by the heads of all the branches of Catholicism in the region. 

The Roman Catholic Church in the Holy Land has fully imbibed the “occupation rhetoric” of the PLO and PA, partly in the mistaken belief that this support will somehow inoculate Catholic Christians against persecution by Muslims. Far from this being the case, there are many and repeated examples of brutal persecution of Christians within the PA-controlled areas.

All the traditional Christian denominations prefer to ignore both what is happening to their own people at the hands of Muslims and the inconvenient fact that Jewish Israel is the only Middle Eastern state where Christians can freely exercise their religious beliefs and practices....'

Read the entire article here

The New York Times reports that

'A conflict largely defined by dueling narratives became a battle of competing imagery during Pope Francis’ sojourn through the Holy Land, with Palestinians and Israelis both seizing on the pontiff’s strong symbolic gestures to promote their perspectives....

“He made some gestures that feel a little bit uncomfortable for us, but he also went out of his way to make gestures to comfort us,” said Rabbi Gordis, senior vice president of Jerusalem’s Shalem College.

“It depends on which set of lenses one wants to bring to this,” he added. “If one wants to do a kind of tit for tat, photo op for photo op, then there are going to be Israelis that feel we got the short end of the stick. If you zoom out, what it feels like is an attempt to inspire.” ...'

Certainly, as the above tweet reminds us, Pope Francis made an extraordinary symbolic gesture in affirmation of the legitimacy of Zionism by visiting (and placing a wreath on) Theodor Herzl's grave on Mount Herzl, where the remains of the founder of modern Zionism have lain since 1949, when, the year following the establishment of the State of Israel and 45 years after his death and burial in Vienna.

For pontiffs have visited Israel before, gone to the western Wall and to Yad Vashem, but never to Herzl's resting place.

Melanie Phillips, writing in the Jerusalem Post,  wondered

"whether the pope will speak out clearly against this Christian victimization when he meets representatives of Islam on his visit to what he calls the Holy Land. He reportedly wants to heal the fissure between Jews and Palestinians. Very nice; but surely his priority should be stopping the slaughter of his own flock."

She proceeded to remind us that

'.... Across the developing world, including countries where Christians are being persecuted, the churches are experiencing phenomenal growth. If trends persist, Europe’s Christians will be overtaken by those in Africa, Latin America and Asia, most of the growth driven by the astounding expansion of Pentecostal, Charismatic and other evangelical churches....One reason for such growth is that people who have suffered from repressive regimes are turning to a religion which (thanks to its Jewish roots) underpins freedom and human rights. The more barbaric Islamic regimes become, the more people turn to Christianity....

 The striking feature of these new Christians is that, because they are evangelicals and thus take very seriously what is written in the Bible, they devoutly support Israel.

.... Westerners may feel uncomfortable about these new churches since they emphasize healing, prophecy, visions, ecstatic utterances and the supernatural. But they are amongst Israel’s best friends in the world. And their amazing growth has major global implications.

In the West, Christianity is in decline. Even in the US where the churches are still relatively strong, the culture war is being lost to the forces of galloping secularism. With the Islamic world exploiting this civilizational vacuum, Britain and Europe are steadily being Islamized. At same time, the developing world is becoming Christianized. The face of Christianity is thus changing color, from white to (its original) brown and black.

This growth is a huge opportunity for Israel because these new Christians are free from the poisonous hostility towards it of the Western churches. Encouragingly, Israel has come to view these new allies as a strategic asset, but it needs to invest in them much more, helping improve their economies and living standards, to cement this friendship and use it to transform Israel’s leverage at the UN.

It’s not true that time is running out for Israel. Time is running out for the West. It’s not true that Israel is friendless.

It has many friends. Just different ones. And it has to nurture them more carefully....'

"Salvation is from the Jews," observes a celebrated phrase in one of the Christian gospels.

For Israel, salvation (so to speak) therefore seems set to come from the Christians, particularly Christians of the Third World.

See her article, with its encouraging statistics, here

As she says,

'In Iran, of all places, the churches are experiencing the fastest expansion in the world with estimated annual growth rates of more than 20 percent. According to some sources, the number of Iranian evangelicals has grown from a few hundred in 1979 to more than five million today.

 It’s even happening in China. Mao expelled Christian missionaries and predicted that “colonialist” Christianity would disappear. Yet from a total of 900,000 then, Chinese Christians have now grown to at least 80 million.

 One reason for such growth is that people who have suffered from repressive regimes are turning to a religion which (thanks to its Jewish roots) underpins freedom and human rights. The more barbaric Islamic regimes become, the more people turn to Christianity. Just a few years ago Algeria, for example, had around 1,500 Christians; under its repressive Islamist government, their numbers have swelled to nearly 200,000.'

But Israel and its friends mustn't be complacent.  For the anti-Zionist Christians in the West (including that tireless crusader against Israel Stephen Sizer, no stranger to either Iran or Algeria and who recently had one of his anti-Zionist works translated into Chinese) have obviously also taken note of  these figures.  Their pernicious influence must be countered.

For as Sizer wrote last November here:

"I am in Algeria this week at the invitation of the Minister for Religious Affairs and Wakf, Bouabdallah Ghlamallah, and the Right Revd Dr Mouneer Anis, the Anglican  Bishop of Egypt and North Africa. I have been giving a series of lectures on the Middle East conflict from a Christian perspective in universities and Islamic institutes, made some TV and radio programmes, given several newspaper interviews, and preached in Holy Trinity Church, Algiers, the only Anglican church in Algeria....

One of the issues I am addressing is the influence of Christian Zionism in perpetuating the Middle East conflict,  which tries to suggest Zionism is some how compatible with Christianity and lends it a veneer of Biblical credibility it does not warrant. The movement has been repudiated unequivocally by the heads of the indigenous Middle East churches in the Jerusalem Declaration on Christian Zionism....

The Algerian Religious Affairs Ministry are keen to arrange a follow-up lecture tour of other universities in 2014.'

Melanie Phillips Booed & Taunted For Telling The Truth About Iran (video)

Watch this segment from the BBC's Question Time this week, in which Marvellous Melanie cops flak from fellow-panellist Boris Johnson for telling the truth about Iran, and is booed and subjected to derisive laughter from clowns, ostriches, ignoramuses and fellow-travellers in the (as usual carefully selected) studio audience.

(Hat tip: Vlad Tepes blog)

And see Melanie Phillips's impressive article here written in the aftermath of the incident.

Zionism Defended - by Marvellous Melanie (video)

Someone has just uploaded this to YouTube.  It dates from 2005, and her side in the motion referred to lost (see http://www.intelligencesquared.com/events/zionism-today-is-the-real-enemy-of-the-jews2 ),
but for a clear and concise espousal of Zionism Melanie Phillips's speech is as valid as ever, and difficult to surpass:

Melanie on her "Felony": Melanie Phillips interviewed regarding Arab Barbarism and Media Bias against Israel (video)

In a recent post (http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/2011/03/stinker-out-of-bedfordshire.html) I told how an article on The Spectator website by the British columnist Melanie Phillips, in which she referred to the barbarism of the Arabs who perpetrated the Itamar massacre, has been referred to British police.  In this interview with Yaakov Achi-Meir on Israeli TV's Channel One Ms Phillips defends her choice of phrase, and explains how the British media are "world leaders" in the "moral inversion" which leads it to ignore atrocities against Israel and only the military responses to Israel, thus contributing materially to the public's impression of Israel as the aggressor.  Ms Phillips pulls no punches in condemning Arab attitudes and in telling how Israel should be dealing with its public relations problem.

Hat tip for the original video http://www.iba.org.il/olam to Avraham Reiss of Jerusalem

A Stinker Out of Bedfordshire

The renowned British columnist Melanie Phillips recently wrote a humdinger of a book entitled The World Turned Upside Down.  Just how upside down that portion of the world known as Great (make that "formerly Great") Britain, aka Cloud Cuckoo Land, is has been freshly demonstrated by the fact that The Spectator, on whose site Ms Phillips's blog appears, is being investigated by, of all absurdities, the constabulary of Bedfordshire. 

Why?  Because someone living in that county has apparently referred to that force this post http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/6779100/armchair-barbarism.thtml on which Ms Phillips wrote of the "barbarism" of the Arabs who killed the Fogel family in Itamar.

I'd call butchering a family while it slept, and in the process decapitating a tiny baby, barbarism. Wouldn't you?

And now it's up to the Bedfordshire plods to decide whether to prosecute.

It's a mad, mad, mad, mad world.

Read more:
http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/6796298/the-threat-to-a-british-liberty.thtml

Marvellous Melanie on the "Delusional Perspective" through which Israel is viewed in the UK

As a commentator on the current stupor afflicting the West, in its denial of the full extent of the jihadist threat and its appeasement of those who would destroy first Israel and then the rest of the free world,  Melanie Phillips has few equals.

Interviewed recently on Israeli TV ( http://www.iba.org.il/olam  hat tip: Avraham Reiss) she spoke of the delusional attitude in the UK regarding Israel, a situation that she describes as "pathological", with public opinion swayed by an intelligentsia that gets its information largely from outlets such as Ha'aretz and is "impervious to reason, impervious to evidence, impervious to facts". She also speaks of the media's failure to report accurately about the Middle East – and stresses that for this state of affairs Israel shoulders some of the blame, turning itself into a victim, with its hasbara "a joke" and even members of its academia ignorant of the history of their own country and feeding students the lie that Israel was "born in sin".  The Islamists have "colonised the battleground of the mind" and as a result truth has been inverted, with Israel transformed from "victim into victimiser". And she warns of the true goal of Israel's Islamist enemies – to have a Middle East free of the Jewish State altogether.