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)
At an Oxford Union debate on 17 January on the motion "This House Believes The Arab World Has Failed The Palestinian People", that's how Colonel Richard Kemp, former commander of Britain's forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, aptly characterised the plight of the so-called Palestinians, pawns in their fellow Arabs' rejectionist stance towards Israel.
Watch the colonel's speech here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74pPdr5A4wk
The introduction to the motion noted:
"Arab support for a Palestinian state has long been assumed. However, the
denial of citizenship to 4.6 million exiled Palestinians, combined with
greater Israeli-Arab collaboration, has led some to question their
commitment. Are these incidents isolated, or symptomatic of an Arab
world that has failed the people of Palestine?"
Apart from Colonel Kemp speakers "in proposition" were, in the Union's words:
'Mudar Zahran - Palestinian-Jordanian Secretary General of the Jordanian
Opposition Coalition. He has advocated for Jordan to be the Palestinian
state'
and
'Imad-ad-Dean
Ahmad - President and co-founder of the Minaret of Freedom Institute, an
Islamic libertarian organisation which counters distortions and
misconceptions about Islamic beliefs and practice'
On the opposing side:
'Lowkey - British-Iraqi rapper and activist known for his politically
charged music, including Long Live Palestine. He is a Patron of the
Palestine Solidarity Campaign
Ghada Karmi - Palestinian doctor,
journalist and academic at the University of Exeter, she fled Jerusalem
with her family in 1948
Kito de Boer - Former Dutch diplomat, he
served as Head of Mission of the Quartet from 2015 to 2017, an
international organisation which mediates between Israelis and
Palestinians'
For the entire proceedings go to the Oxford Union's YouTube channel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPnf2Az-95w
Not the least interesting aspect of this video, of Mudar Zahran's impassioned speech, comprising a characteristically robust defence of Israel, is the
antisemitism expressed in so many of the comments below it on the site.
Meanwhile,on Twitter, no less than three recent tweets by the, the BBC's former Gaza correspondent, the outrageously partisan (we all know on which side) Jon Donnison, suggest Jonno Donno has been hard hit by the comparatively early death of radical comedian Jeremy Hardy.
I mean no disrespect to the late Mr Hardy by suggesting that the fact he starred in a vicious documentary demonising the IDF may have particularly endeared him to the nakedly leftist BBC hack.
"Our interest is Israel's interest... You have been very destructive to my people without knowing it... Enough! Enough!"
The brave and forthright leader of the Jordanian-Palestinian Coalition, Mudar Zahran, in a passionate address to the Parliament last month, in which he delivers a scathing condemnation of BDS.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivEjubIYWC4
Here he is more recently, condemning Hamas and the latest rocket onslaught from Gaza:
Here is the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.
He writes:
A conference in Jerusalem next month proposing a plan (“Plan”) involving the dethronement of Jordan’s King Abdullah threatens any attempt by Jordan and Israel to peacefully apportion – between their respective States – sovereignty in Judea and Samaria – called the West Bank since 1950 – and Gaza (“Disputed Territories”).
The Plan’s stated goal is to enable Israel to annex Judea and Samaria (West Bank).
The Disputed Territories comprise the last remaining 5 per cent of the territory encompassed by the 1922 League of Nations Mandate for Palestine – where sovereignty still remains undetermined between Jews and Arabs. Sovereignty in the remaining 95 per cent now resides in Israel (17 per cent) and Jordan (78 per cent).
Negotiations between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (“PLO”) to create a 23rd independent Arab State in the Disputed Territories were fruitlessly pursued for 21 years – before being suspended in April 2014 with little likelihood of being resumed.
The conference organisers are totally upfront and make no bones as to how the Plan is to be achieved:
"The beauty of the plan is that it doesn’t require the consent of the PA (Palestinian Authority) or of Jordan. It just requires the embrace of President Trump. He must engineer a way to remove the king from power and to install [Mudar] Zahran and his coalition as the interim government.”
The PA ceased to exist on 3 January 2013 so reference to it is irrelevant.
Zahran [pictured] – Secretary-General of the self-declared Jordanian Opposition Coalition – has formulated the Plan as follows:
“This plan seeks to execute a feasible two-state solution where Jordan is the natural homeland for all Palestinians, and Israel becomes sovereign over all soil west to the River Jordan. This could only happen if the corrupt, terror-supporting and double-speaking Hashemite royal family leaves Jordan. The Palestinians often revolt against the regime but the king’s police force puts them down. The American media ignore this solution to the unrest in Jordan.
What is needed is for the U.S. to influence the Jordanian army and security agency to stand with the revolution the next time it breaks out. The security agencies and army are already securing the country without any influence from the king who is mostly abroad. Under these conditions, the king would not return. Once that happens an interim government of secular Palestinians who want peace with Israel could be appointed.”
Dethroning King Abdullah to end Hashemite-rule in Jordan for the last 95 years will only exacerbate the 100-years-old conflict between Jews and Arabs.
The Plan also calls for the transfer of one million Arabs living in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) to Jordan:
“Zahran intends to build a new city in Jordan to accommodate a million new residents. This will create jobs and stimulate the economy. These homes will be purchased on behalf of any Arabs willing to emigrate and given to them on arrival.”
President Trump will certainly not be embracing this belligerent and catastrophic Plan.
Wiser counsel should remind Trump that one of his predecessors – Ronald Reagan – said in 1980:
“Israel and Jordan are the two Palestinian states envisioned and authorized by the United Nations. Jordan is now recognized in some 80 per cent of the old territory of Palestine. Israel and Jordan are the parties primarily authorized to settle the future of the unallocated territories in accordance with the principles of the mandate and the provisions of Resolutions 242 and 338.”
Ignoring this Reagan Declaration has prolonged a conflict that could have ended 37 years ago.
President Trump needs to convince King Abdullah to begin direct negotiations with Israel. Failure to do so ensures an even bleaker future for the Middle East than currently exists.
A Hungarian television crew introduces us to the sights of Vienna:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GgPZCArdAw
Now, what was it that pro-Israel Jordanian opposition leader Mudar Zahran warned of less than two years ago regarding Europe's "refugee" influx? Ah, yes!
"This is only the beginning ...This is going to change Europe's culture ..."
And that isn't going to be good for Europe's Jews.
'The number of people suspected of Islamic radicalization in France has risen by 60% in two years, reports Le Figaro.
The daily said that there are currently 18,550 cases within the Fichier des Signalements pour la Prévention et la Radicalisation à Caractère Terroriste (FSPRT), which collects reports from the prefect’s office, the police, gendarmerie and the public. Managed by the interior ministry, the system was set up in March 2015 and during the period of the Paris attacks in the same year there were 11,400 people listed.'
First, Jamie Glazov talking to pro-Israel London-based Jordanian Palestinian leader Mudar Zahran and a former Imam about the "Third Intifada":
Second: In the wake of this article of his, entitled "Don't Make The Muslims Angry," Middle East commentator Daniel Greenfield talks to Jamie Glazov about what he insists is the Obama Administration's connivance in Muslim supremacist attitudes that undermine and deny Jews' rights to Judaism's holiest site:
Here's the eminently likeable Jordanian politician in exile Mudar Zahran, the son of refugees from Jerusalem and Judea/Samaria (as he puts it), talking on the Glazov Show, in a video that he's recently uploaded:
Inter alia, he addresses fears that the Muslim Brotherhood would take over in Jordan were King Abdullah to fall.
Here's Mudar Zahran, the Jordanian opposition figure of Palestinian background who's very sympathetic to Israel, interviewed on Brett and Jon Rappaport's current affairs series The Final Say about the current situation in the Middle East.
"They are ... in their own world when it comes to radicalism and hatred of Israel ...Their main goal is to eliminate Israel and establish an Islamic state."
In that quotation, is Mr Zahran talking about Hamas?
No. He's talking about the attitude of Palestinians in the West Bank, where he spent this past summer.
The entire interview, not overly long, is worth listening to, but the relevant section starts at about 13:15, when Mr Zahran's interviewer asks him whether there are any genuine partners for peace on the Palestinian side.
Regarding the people of Gaza, he says
"[T]hey have had enough of Hamas. They would love to see Hamas go."
He is scornful of the Kerry Plan and the current vogue for recognising Palestinian statehood..
"The Palestinian Authority is corrupt and affiliated with terrorism."
"Basically the West is pushing Israel as if [statehood] is going to solve all the problems .... It's a bad idea."
His solution?
"[T]he only logical option is a Palestinian state east of the river ...."
Another brave Arab gentleman, speaking earlier this year:
Cary
Nelson is a professor of English at the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign, and co-editor of the forthcoming book The
Case Against Academic Boycotts of Israel. In an article entitled "Is the Boycott Movement Anti-Semitic?" he observes, inter alia:
'.... BDS assertions that they are condemned simply because they
are policy critics distract us from the more complex and troubling ways
that the movement enhances anti-Semitic aims....
Arguments that Jews have no ancient
connection to the land, that Israelites and Hebrews never existed —
positions that some academic BDS advocates promote — also have an
anti-Semitic component. The demand that the citizens of Israel give up
their right to political self-determination and the unsupportable
assertion that the Israeli government is an exceptionally egregious
human rights violator are also consciously or unconsciously underwritten
by the long-term history of anti-Semitism and the history of efforts to
isolate and “other” the Jewish people....
[Addressing the issue of BDS] also requires that we confront the policies vigorously
promoted by virtually all of the BDS movement’s major spokespeople,
whether or not the movement officially endorses them. These include
advocacy by Omar Barghouti and others of a one-state “solution”
encompassing Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank in which Jews would become a
minority. That demand is typically accompanied by the call for the
Palestinian diaspora’s “right of return” to this new state, a plan that
would further marginalize the Jewish population....
The confidence with which some BDS
advocates assure us Jews could live peacefully and safely and have full
religious freedom in an Arab-dominated state is so contradicted by
regional history, culture, and politics that one has to consider the
possibility that they really do not care about the fate of Israeli Jews.... Equally worrisome are those BDS supporters who ally themselves
with Hamas, despite the organization’s ferociously anti-Semitic and
genocidal charter. One might well wonder why those in the West who would
ordinarily oppose a group that vilifies gays — and has an appalling
view of women — would overlook these facts because of Hamas’s stance
toward Israeli Jews.
.... Debates about BDS resolutions and petitions
often invoke the standard tropes anti-Semitism has deployed, notably
that BDS opponents are organized and funded by an international Jewish
lobby ... That both NGOs
and foreign governments fund BDS activity is rarely mentioned.
.... The fact that a number of Jewish academics support the
BDS movement does not absolve anyone of the possibility they harbor an
anti-Semitic bias, though the BDS movement likes to say it does.....
.... It
justifies its one-state advocacy by demonizing the State of Israel with
hyperbolic and irrational accusations.
Meanwhile, the rise of
anti-Semitism in Europe and elsewhere puts the lie to the confidence
that Jews do not need a homeland whose future and right to self-defense
they control....'
'Civilians in Gaza told me they were suffering because of the
Israeli bombings, and they also confirmed that the bombings came because
Hamas was fighting from door to door and from one house to another.
Also, strangely Hamas is asking people not to leave their homes when
they receive text messages from the IDF telling them to do so. In other
words, Hamas even went on TV and its websites telling people to never
leave their homes. A Gazan journalist told me Hamas would kill and shoot
at anyone evacuating their homes and even there was an incident where
people who ran towards the Israeli army were shot by Hamas. Hamas wants
to make a point on behalf of Qatar and Iran and Jordan, and it
has...very well....
I have been speaking to my people here in the West Bank about this [BDS],
Israel means jobs and jobs means Israel, the boycott has blown Israeli
economy some influence especially that institutions boycotted are mainly
Israeli businesses in the West Bank and that resulted in Palestinians
losing their jobs. I believe the BDS is not interested at all in my
people's welfare or future, and all they want is either get the funding
from those who hate Jews, or else how come they are not boycotting
Jordan where Palestinian children who make up 88% of the population with
the rest of Palestinians are not even allowed healthcare? I was forced
to leave Jordan and live in exile and I was sentenced to live in prison
by the king, what would have happened if I was sentenced by Israel? All
BDS groups would out there condemning Israel. How comes they won't even
bother to pay attention to someone like me?....'
So declares Jordanian opposition leader, Mudar Zahran, a Palestinian, in conversation about the Middle East with Sharon Oppenheimer; for the entire interview clickhere
And for a mere taste of anti-Israel fanaticism see this Scottish Israel-hater's extraordinary proposal (in an exchange with Scottish PSC chief Napier) that Friends of Israel groups should be outlawed in Britain! Things don't come much more totalitarian than that!
'On September 3rd the Frontline Club – with which the BBC frequently collaborates – will be hosting an event titled “Reporting the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict – Emotion, Bias and Objectivity” which we are informed is already fully booked.
The topic of discussion is promoted as follows:
“The latest chapter in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict has again highlighted the difficulties of covering this complex and deep-rooted conflict that provokes such a strong emotional response from the general public.
The BBC has faced accusation that it is not critical enough of Israel’s actions and that its reporting is one-sided, whereas Channel 4 News has been accused of crossing the line between journalism and campaigning. Is there a middle ground?
In the face of such devastation should we expect correspondents to offer an objective view devoid of emotion? If we encourage correspondents to show more emotion do we risk compromising the credibility and standard of journalism in this country?
Join us as we take a view of the coverage we have seen, talk to the journalists that have produced it and ask what we can learn.”
On the panel selected to provide answers to those questions are Jeremy ‘I see no human shields’ Bowen and Channel 4’s Jon Snow.
The discussion would doubtless be enhanced were Bowen (along with his colleague Orla Guerin) to take the trouble to brush up beforehand on the topic of Hamas’ use of human shields and that policy’s role in causing so many of the civilian casualties which he graphically reported during his recent stint in the Gaza strip....'
But it is not only regarding the existence of human shields in Gaza that the BBC has turned a blind eye. Beeboids (as the BiasedBBC website has long termed the Corporation's employees) have also chosen to ignore Hamas's similarities to Isis.
That highly intelligent Israeli,with her thorough grounding in Israeli history and affairs, her sound knowledge of regional geopolitics, her gift for the written world,
and her astuteness, has shown up Donnison's mediocrity, ignorance, and prejudice
many times.
And,
not unnaturally, Donnison doesn't like the besting one bit: witness the
recent spiteful trying-to-put-a-brave-face-on-things sour grapes tweet
below:
His bias is
so overt and so pervasive that it is hardly surprising that
some Israel supporters wonder whether this former reporter for
BBC Radio Sheffield, who studied French and politics at the University of Edinburgh, was once a member of or influenced in some way by a Palestine
Solidarity Campaign branch.
And like the BBC's biased Jerusalem Bureau chief Paul Danaher, Donnison, who does nothing to conceal his disdain for the Israeli prime minister, on Twitter has pooh-pooed Netanyahu's analogy between Hamas and Isis, and mocked aspects of Netanyahu's postings. Here's a taste:
Here's
a man who could teach Danahar and Donnison much, the exiled Jordanian
Palestinian leader Mudar Zahran, who's been visiting Bethlehem at some
risk to himself.
This brave pro-Israel figure (if you're on
Facebook and/or Twitter please consider following him, for he deserves a
wide audience) is a practising Muslim who pulls no punches in
condemning the evil that Islamic extremists do.
Moreover, CiF Watch, who reponded to this insolent peevish tweet by Donnison
by pointing out that the true disrespect is Donnison's anti-Israel bias, has many graphic examples that validate the Hamas/ISIS analogy:
'Hamas
and ISIS are birds of a feather, but the Western political class and
media have very different approaches to them. Here, Hamas offers some
friendly advice to ISIS on how to wrap the West around their little
finger'
As distinguished American political scientist Michael Curtis has written:
'The
clue to the intentions of Hamas is given in the Hamas Charter of 1988, a
mixture of anti-Semitism and hatred of Israel. Using the Avalon Project
translation of the Charter or Covenant, one can discern the stated
objectives of Hamas. Only a few selections, sometimes in oblique
language, are necessary to understand this.
Israel
will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it,
just as it obliterated others before it. Hamas (the Islamic Resistance
Movement) strives to raise the banner of Allah over every inch of
Palestine. The Day of Judgment will not come about until Muslims fight
the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and
trees. The stones and trees will say, "There is a Jew behind me; come
and kill him."
The
Hamas Charter gives an answer to all the well-meaning groups and
individuals who call for a peace conference. It declares that the land
of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Muslim
generations until Judgment Day. Rejecting calls for an international
conference to solve the “Palestinian” question, it declares that there
is no solution for the Palestinian question except through jihad.
Initiatives, proposals, and international conferences are all a waste of time and are vain endeavors.
The
mass media will perhaps be surprised to learn from the Charter that
Jews have taken control of the world media, news agencies, publishing
houses, and broadcasting stations. Objective historians may be surprised
that Jews have stirred revolutions in various parts of the world and
were behind the French Revolution, the Communist Revolution, and most
others. All this for “sabotaging societies and achieving Zionist
interests.”
The
Charter informs us of future developments. The Zionist plan is
limitless. After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile
to the Euphrates. The Islamic Resistance Movement must prevent this, and
to leave the “circle of struggle with Zionism is high treason.”
The
question arises: can members of Hamas, who believe that the “Jews are
behind each and every catastrophe on the face of the earth,” be
genuinely interested in any possible reconciliation with Israel when
destruction of the Jewish state is at the core of their concern?'
....'Salafists believe that jihad must be performed under legitimate leadership.... Given that there is neither a legitimate leader nor a Salafist-approved declaration of jihad in Palestine, fighting there is forbidden.
In addition, for Salafists, if non-Muslims control Islamic countries and apostates exist in the Islamic world, the Islamic world must be cleansed of them before all else. In short, the purification of Islamic society takes priority over combat against non-Islamic societies. On this basis, Salafists see conflict with an allegedly illegitimate Hamas government as a first step toward confrontation with Israel. Should the opportunity for military action present itself in the Palestinian territories, Salafists would fight Hamas and other factions deemed in need of “cleansing” from the land and engage Israel afterward....
Salafists today see that their priority as fighting Shiites, “munafiqin” (dissemblers, or false Muslims) and apostates, whom they call the “close enemy.” During the current war in Gaza, a number of IS fighters have burned the Palestinian flag because they consider it a symbol of the decline of the Islamic world, which succumbed to national divisions through the creation of independent political states. In Salafist doctrine, the entire Islamic world must be united under a single state, an Islamic caliphate, which IS declared in late June.
Salafist groups active in Gaza have engaged in various rivalries with Hamas there, but they have not succeeded in establishing a foothold of any significance. Some groups have posted video clips acknowledging their support for IS following the group’s recent victories in Iraq and Syria. The main dispute between Hamas and Salafist groups rests on their disparate principles. Hamas is more realistic and pragmatic than the jihadist Salafists. The former has political priorities in liberating Palestinian land, whereas the latter has religious priorities in the establishment of a totalitarian Islamic caliphate and considers the Israeli issue secondary to this central goal.'
But to quote from another fine piece by Michael Curtis:
'....Along with the Muslim Brotherhood, [ISIS and Hamas] are Islamic extremist groups, violent in their ruthless pursuit of objectives – ISIS to create a caliphate empire, and Hamas to eliminate the State of Israel.
The brutality of ISIS, now transformed into an Islamic state with a caliph, is apparent after its conquest of about a third of Syria, including the oil-rich eastern part, and much of north and central Iraq. Its ruthlessness and brutality are well-documented. That ruthlessness includes making decapitation an art form, executing dozens of Iraqi security forces, and cutting heads of Syrians.
It has imposed sharia law, banned music, separated boys and girls in school, and forced women to wear the niqab, or full veil....
Though the Obama administration has not proposed this, the present conflict provides the opportunity for the existing semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan, set up in 2005, to be transformed into a Kurdish state, long overdue since promised by Britain and France in 1920.
If the Western democracies appeared for too long to be unaware of the scale of the danger of Islamist ISIS, many, especially those in the mainstream media and the churches, seem equally oblivious to the real nature and danger of Hamas.
They have not accepted that the real contemporary struggle is between an extreme and regressive Islamist group, linked to the Muslim Brotherhood and interested in the killing of Jews and the creation of a caliphate state, and the existence and survival of democratic Israel....
There is now little doubt that much of the hostility against Israel has been transformed into prejudicial anti-Semitism. The level of violence and the number of attacks on individual Jews and Jewish institutions, synagogues, school, stores, Holocaust memorials, and cultural events has made those institutions resemble armed fortresses. A crowd mentality of hatred has made decent individuals afraid to speak out....
Western public opinion, the media, and the academic world should recognize the existing struggle between an Islamist threat that would end the tolerance and civil liberties in the societies its forces might control, and democratic countries, with all their faults and problems, trying to resist that threat.
The choice should not be difficult, even for the New York Times. It certainly should not be suicide. '
On Thursday a friend of mine in the dear old Mother Country, a
Cambridge-educated educationist (that's Brit for "educator") who's neither Jewish, nor a gung-ho
supporter of Israel (I have had heated exchanges with her and her
husband over this issue in the past), nor particularly rightwing in politics, sent me an email. Its main purpose
was to tell me of happenings in the neighbourhood that I left behind
last year to return to Australia. But it also had this to say:
"[My husband] and I are very concerned about Gaza. Even we think it is so unfair the way the situation is reported. Of course
Israel can t have rockets landing in their territory; nor tunnels
springing up everywhere. Hamas is dreadful - using children as human
shields - and how much did those tunnels cost to build? The money would
have been better spent building up Gaza's infrastructure. Who has ever
heard of a place with that population with only one power station? And
as for the conduct of Egypt closing its borders against its fellow
Muslims. Why wasn't a proper kindertransport organised? Can you imagine
Jews behaving like that to their fellow Jews? Basically I am furious..."
Alas, not everyone faced with a barrage of media distortions is so discerning. One of my favourite bloggers, Edgar Davidson, has devoted several
recent posts (do read them!) to the issue of British media prejudice against Israel, and how
the British public is being indoctrinated. For instance:
'What the
latest Gaza conflict has made clear is the extent to which anti-Israel
activists have managed to ensure not just that the Hamas narrative
dominates all public discussion, but that any alternative view is
totally silenced.
The ad The Times refused to run
It is almost impossible to understand how a
supposedly 'free' Press has completely ignored the mass of evidence that
shows their entire presentation of the conflict to be a tissue of lies.
Every British newspaper (and TV News channel) without exception -
left, right and centre - has simply presented the Hamas narrative. This
includes reporting - without questioning - the Hamas reported casualty
figures and the Hamas reported 'attacks on schools and hospitals by
Israelis'. Although the latter have invariably turned out to be either
a) completely false, b) the result of Hamas rockets or c) the result of
Hamas firing from those locations, the media has uniformly refused to
produce retractions or corrections.
Not a single newspaper or TV
report has made clear that all their Gaza reporters are under the total
control of Hamas, even though other countries' reporters have documented
the abuses after they have left. With very minor exceptions, the ONLY
reports from Israel have been those where the media sensed an
opportunity to further demonize Israel (such as the story of civilians
in Sderot cheering when missiles were targeted at Gaza, and where a
group of extreme leftist 'anti-war' protesters in Tel Aviv were
confronted by an angry crowd). The obsession with the Sderot story is
especially telling since, for 15 years, the media has completely ignored
the missiles that have rained down on that town almost every day from
Gaza.
We are not talking about 'anti-Israel' bias here. That has
been going on for years. We are talking about a totally uniform effort
by the entire UK media to brainwash the public with hatred for Israel.
While some of the newspapers have carried rare commentary pieces
supporting Israel, these have been drowned out by the tsunami of
anti-Israel commentaries; to the uninformed reader the pro-Israel
commentaries must seem ludicrous since they speak of things that have
NEVER been reported as part of the news, like: Hamas use of human
shields, the Hamas charter to destroy Israel; the extent Israel goes to
avoid civilian casualites; the thousands of Hamas rockets fired at
Israel, etc....'
It seems to be getting worse, the one-sided narrative about Gaza in the Western media. And the Australian media is similarly affected. With honourable exceptions, the bias is all on the Palestinian side. The ABC, SBS, and the commercial channels, are all as bad as each other, with only token attempts to present the Israeli case, if indeed it is preesented at all. One newsreader's raised eyebrow, another's frown, and yet another's shake of the head, such mannerisms as those emphasise the disgust that in which those employed to read from the cue card appear to hold Israel's Operation Protective Edge.
"There's been a major development in the fight against Islamic extremists in Iraq", blithely proclaims Channel Nine News (regarding the current Gaza crisis one of the worst offenders against evenhanded reporting), while failing to consider that in Hamas Israel is facing Islamic extremists on its doorstep.
Meanwhile, segments by the truly egregious Orla Guerin (she of the demonising tone and the fanatical scowl) than whom a more biased reporter never disgraced the BBC, are shown on ABC, and there are no counter-reports from the Israeli side.
Like its counterpart in Britain, the ABC, publicly-funded and obligated to be objective, seldom is, inclining instead towards the left-liberal worldview. Why Israel let her and the snide, brattish Jon Donnison back, given their track records of hostile reportage and misrepresentation towards it, must be reckoned amongst the most magnanimous acts of a country in peril; it must also be reckoned among the most reckless and stupid.
At the same time, the odious pronouncements of Israeli leftists (well-described here for what they are) give aid and comfort to leftist Israel-haters everywhere.
Sentiments such as these appear on left-leaning media websites (in this case the ABC's, in relation to the downfall of journalist Mike Carlton) by opponents of the Middle East's only true democracy:
"Needless to say it's very sad what is happening right now in Israel and ... in Gaza. I bet most Israelis and the Israeli establishment and government did not desire the war on Gaza and did not desire to be bombing Hamas. But unfortunately Hamas, a terrorist group, has brought misery for my people the Palestinians and for the Israelis....
Unfortunately the media antisemitism ... has reported very badly on Israel at the moment.
As a Palestinian leader it is in my best interests that Israel does well because whenever Israel does well we do very well and we thrive. Whenever Israel is in trouble because of Hamas and the antisemites in the West we suffer.
In fact, Hamas has only survived because of the tolerance and the media support of the West and elsewhere .....
.... All this is happening because the Palestinians need a state. It's true we do deserve a state....That state today is Jordan....
.... There is no question about the right and the entitlement [of the Jews] to The Land ....
It's about time the Israel-lovers in the United States, and there are millions of them, should consider the Jordanian option....
Most so-called Palestinians, my people, live in Jordan ..."
That's the message of the brave and personable Mudar Zahran, the Jordanian opposition leader who we have had the pleasure of meeting several times before on this blog.
He makes the point quoted in the header at 19:20, during a theme that begins at 18:48.
Among his other observations is that Israel is fighting the West's war against Islamism and that if Israel falls, other western countries will follow.
He is speaking at length to Brett and Jon Rappaport of Rappaport Media.Com, in a long discussion on paths to peace that also includes Sarah Stern, founder and president of the Endowment for Middle EastTruth
In this superb must-hear discussion she aptly describes Mr Zahran as a"profile in courage".
Here's the eminently likeable Mr Mudar Zahran again.
In an interview in Sweden with Avner Ben Israel, Mr Zahran, the leader of the Palestinians in Jordan, prudently self-exiled for the time being owing to his harsh criticism of his country's monarch, explains how Palestinians have benefited under Israeli rule and why Israel is definitely not an apartheid state.
Also interviewed by Avner Ben Israel is David Rubin, former mayor of Shiloh: (he is interviewed first, and after Mr Zahran is interviewed the two enter into a cordial and informative discussion regarding the present and the future, including the path to peace.)
All praise to Swedish Jewish Dialogue for another illuminating video!
Want a nice way to start the week? Well, here's a video lasting about 38 minutes that really must be viewed, or at least listened to, from beginning to end.
"I came to this part of Stockholm, where Israel is hated, at considerable risk to my life, to tell the truth," the exiled leader of the Palestinian Jordanians, Mudar Zahran, declares. ".... There have always been Jews in that Holy Land, for thousands of years ..."
A practising Muslim, the personable Mr Zahran has kind things to say about Jews and Israel, and harsh things to say about the Palestinian Authority, Hamas, the Muslim
Brotherhood, Islamic terrorism, the Jordanian monarch, Arab dictatorships, and the BDS movement.
Snippets:
"I have one word for them: 'shmucks'. They don't care for my people – they just hate Jews" he says of the Boycott Israel brigade, for whom he has this message: "We are against you and we don't need you, because you are only hurting us and not the Israelis..."
"Israel has served as the airbag for the West... If they did not have Israel to fight, they would be fighting you. We should respect and support Israel's sovereignty over all its land, as a Jewish State ..."
"Sooner or later, the weak King of Jordan is going to fall ... As a result we are going to have a Palestinian State for the first time ..."
Mudar Zahran is a writer and dissident of Palestinian background from Jordan who having fallen foul of the Hashemite regime was obliged to seek asylum in London, where he's lived since 2010.
"a secular Jordanian pro-democracy activist of Palestinian heritage that supports peace with Israel and often refers to the Faisal Wiesel Agreement by which Arabs were to turn 78 percent of historic Palestine—-today’s Jordan—into their homeland. He claims that he is well-heard and followed in Jordan, noting many incidents, for example when he called for them not to protest against the Israeli Embassy in Amman, and as he notes, the Washington Post reported less than 200 people showed up for the Jordanian government-backed anti-Israel protest."
In an interview with Canadian broadcaster Jamie Glazov (managing editor of FrontPageMagazine), the admirable Mr Zahran has been talking a great deal of sense not only about the Kerry Peace Plan (it would, he fears, mean Israel's erasure from the map), but about the status of Palestinians in Jordan compared with their far better status in Israel, and the antisemitic nature of the Israel-is-an-apartheid-state slur.
He labels "a huge disgrace" the fact that western Israel-haters portray Israel as an apartheid state and seek to boycott it, yet (in that characteristically hypocritical way of theirs) are silent regarding the treatment of Palestinians in Jordan:
"An Hamas terrorist has more rights inside Israel than a Palestinian in Jordan"
He asks rhetorically why the BDSers do not target Islamic universities which deny education to women, and adds that antisemitism drives the western anti-Israel movement.
Denouncing both Hamas and the Palestinian authority, he notes that his relatives in Jerusalem like living under "Israeli prosperity".
There are several videos on YouTube featuring Mr Zahran ("a very brave man, a truth teller", as Jamie Glazov describes him.
See the interview that I've briefly described here
