Hat On, Gloves Off: A London anti-Israel activist's antisemitic rant

Anyone who has looked regularly at MrAlexSeymour's YouTube channel will probably be aware of a pretty lady with a penchant for pretty headgear.

The lady in question is hardly going to be mistaken for an admirer of Israel.

 She sometimes appears in the videos he makes and posts that show

not-so-pretty demos in London demonising Israel.

Here are a couple of stills from his videos in which the pretty lady strikes a charming pose while surrounded by some decidedly non-charming placards.

 Recollect her now?

Well, anyway, this past week (hat tip – no pun intended – Reader P) the lady has been posting, as is her right and her wont, on social media.

In the process of revealing the various bees under her bonnet she has unwittingly bought in to that perennial chestnut about a "Palestinian" football team that played in Australia in 1939, the team which, as I've blogged a few times (including here), was an initiative of the Yishuv under the Mandate, the team consisting entirely of Jews:

That just evokes a small sigh and a giggle.  But look at what else the pretty lady posted on Facebook the same day.  The "anti-Zionist"/"pro-Palestinian" brigade are normally so very careful to deny that they are antisemitic.  Yet the lady, with this message, pulls no punches:

Despite (or perhaps because of) the antisemitism inherent in that post, it's now got 45 "Likes" (ten more than when Reader P screenshot it and sent it to me.

Among those who have "liked" it is the person who has since posted the following filth on the pretty lady's Facebook wall:

Also posted to that wall is ordure such as this:

Sad to say, such examples of dung have their "Like" button pressers.

It is certainly instructive to discover what "anti-Zionists" really think ...

From Hage Docker To Hage Soccer

"It was always going to be a sensitive topic, but a proposal by two university lecturers   –  one a Jew,* the other a Lebanese-born Christian  –  that Australian academics boycott their Israeli counterparts has unleashed a storm of protest," went a report under the byline Geoff Strong in the Melbourne Age on 6 June 2002.

"Angered at Israel's treatment of Palestinians, the pair last month launched an online petition calling for the boycott. They have collected about 100 signatures but have also provoked a counter-petition that attacks the pair for singling out Israel and failing to request similar boycotts of academic contacts with totalitarian regimes such as China and the Arab states.

John Docker, a fellow of the Humanities Research Centre at the Australian National University, and Sydney University anthropology lecturer Ghassan Hage, launched their petition after similar petitions were published in Europe and the US...."

 [* Read this, from Strong's report:

'Dr Docker said yesterday that he was offended by Israel's actions against the Palestinians. "I was brought up in a left-wing Jewish family and part of that upbringing was a concern for human rights, but Australian Jews seem absorbed by Zionism."

 And compare it with this, by Paul Bogdanor:

'Docker grew up in the Sydney suburb of Bondi. His parents were both active in the Communist Party, his father Irish and his mother of East End Jewish background....

Docker was brought up without any religious beliefs, and didn't think of himself as Jewish during his childhood....' ]

I well remember the online Hage/Docker petition: pro-Zionists had sport with it, adding such signatories as "Adolf Hitler" and "Yasser Arafat" and even, if I'm not mistaken,  "Ariel Sharon".  Thus bestrewn with signatures each more preposterous than the last, and choc-a-bloc with  pro-Israel comments, the petition became a laughing stock, a notable floparoo, and if I recall correctly its originators ultimately hid the "add signature" facility from public view so that no further sport could be had.


 Now, I see, Ghassan Hage has tried to make sport of his own with that by now rather famous video of the Palestinian the Yishuv soccer team playing in Australia in 1939.


Rather more on the ball that those poor deluded anti-Israel propagandists who have triumphantly posted the video in the conviction that it showed a team of Arabs playing for their nation "Palestine" (see here and here), Hage has nevertheless made some strange, unfathomable comments:

 Meanwhile, in Sydney, from Lynch, Riemer and assorted academic buddies, more BDS nonsense.

From Dr Philip Mendes of Monash University, a  new article in which, inter alia, Hage is mentioned.

And from Dr Dvir Abramovich, of Melbourne University, some recent pertinent words relating to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions/demonisation of Israel mania mania:

'There is a well-funded and powerful cottage industry of NGOs, journalists, academics and activists who are crystal clear about their unabashed anti-Israel ideology. The goal of their openly declared war is to damage Israel’s standing in the court of world opinion and to bring about its collapse.

This fire-hot, unbridled hatred is obsessive and irrational, based on a methodical marshalling of lies that paint Israel as immoral and genocidal....

Facts and truth-telling are out.

This relentless, pernicious global crusade makes Israel’s existence the source of all troubles in the Mid-east and an ever-present threat to lasting peace, much more than Iran or ISIS.

Forget the dictatorships. Israel is the embodiment of evil, just like Nazi Germany. By that warped logic, fascist Israel is not just worthy of punishment and isolation through the BDS and UN censure, it is a country guilty of ethnic cleansing and oppression, that has no right to exist....

A world without Israel is the new anti-Semitism....'

Read all of Dvir Abramovich's article here

Balls!!! See How They Spin!

Is there no end to the gullibility and ignorance of the Israel-hating brigade who fail to understand that the "Palestine" involved in this pre-war soccer match Down Under totally comprised members of the Yishuv?

This latest kick of this ball has landed it onto the Facebook page of the Kiwi Israel-demonising organisation Kia Ora Gaza (which is headed by veteran far leftist Roger Fowler, who's been linked to the Communist Party and to Socialist Alliance).

 A typical response has so far been

Will any of the anti-Israel activists belonging to Kia Ora Gaza have the wherewithal to cry "Foul!", I wonder?

Still, it's an amusing spectator sport in itself to note the number of times the Israel-haters have been taken in.

Not the brightest shirts on the field, are they?

When and where will they strike next?
 
The truth about the team here and here

"So Palestine Never Existed?": The soccer ball rolls on ... & scores another own goal for the ignorant

Guys, please try not to make such fools of yourselves.

I mean, it's kind of embarrassing to have to point out your ignorance of Mandate Palestine and the Yishuv.

The latest own goal comes from a somebody who found, via  the Ramallah-based Ayjal Radio Network, another piece of irrefutable proof that there was (wait for it!) once a place called Palestine!

That'll show those Zionists, huh?

The somebody in question appears to be a supporter of an Aussie outfit called Students for Palestine.  They're a leftist-cum-Muslim organisation which is often represented at anti-Israel rallies, at least in Melbourne.

Their agenda is suggested by their map logo, which is seen below on a poster advertising an event at Latrobe University in greater Melbourne:

And, citing these guys, this Elgas fella writes:

You (and they) should have looked here first, Mr Elgas! Then you (and the radio buddies, who I'm sure wouldn't want to claim a team that didn't belong to them) would have known that the Palestine football team was a  team from the Yishuv, and consisted of - er - Zionists!

Better luck next time, old bean.


(Incidentally, for Aussie federal MP Michael Danby's condemnation of recent bullying of a Jewish student by certain pro-Palestinians at Latrobe see here)

"Palestine Soccer Team. Sending Out A Few Terrorists to Play Against You in Australia"

Streuth! How shall we Zionists, we-so-called hasbarafiosos, ever live this one down?  There was a Palestinian soccer team that visited Australia in 1939.  More irrefutable evidence that there was indeed a people known as "The Palestinians" well before Yasser Arafat snatched that term for propaganda purposes in the 1960s and ran with it.

To quote the original uploader onto YouTube:

"This video is one of endless evidents [sic] which prove that Palestine was inhibted [sic] by the Palestinaians before the jewish people came from all around the world to occupy this land ,demolish the cities and villages of Palestinians slaughter the people of this land and force them to leave their homes and property.

the result of this match : Palestine 1-0 Australia

this video was taken from the historian Ahmad Mrowat Mroueh Facebook page ..."

Not so fast, Ahmad, and those who have been misled along with you.  Have a listen to what the Aussie commentator says at 34 seconds and you'll learn that the "Palestinians" aren't Arabs, as you assume, but Jews:

"Wham! Saved! But then the Jews were always a saving race."

 But don't just take the commentator's word for it.

(Melbourne) Argus, 27 June 1939

Here's some background on the team (read the entire thing here, it's quite fascinating):

".... Ironically it was Germany's annexation of Austria in 1938 that put a Palestine tour of Australia back on the agenda.

The Australian Association had been in correspondence with Austrian club, Rapid, and the Indian National team about touring Australia. In June they rejected a proposal to bring out a Palestine team despite the Melbourne Jewish community backing the tour with £1000 and providing accommodation.

However when Rapid applied to the German Football Association for permission to tour it was rejected.

With little hope of any European side touring Australia, the Association eventually changed it's previous stance and in early 1939, agreed for Palestine to tour, as long as the financial backing was guaranteed.

Before leaving for Australia, the touring party laid a wreath on the Australian War Memorial, opposite the entrance gates of the British War Cemetery, at Mount Scopus, Jerusalem in memory of fallen Australian soldiers.

The players, who were mostly from the powerful Maccabi Tel-Aviv club side with a few players from other teams included to create a 'Palestine' banner under which to play. The Grand Mufti had a message for Australia, when placing this ad  in a newspaper upon the arrival of the tourists in Western Australia.

 The visitors were officially welcomed to Australia by the chairman of the board of control of the West Australian Soccer Football Association (Mr.F. Smith) and members of the board. Following the official reception, the Palestine players had their first practice run since leaving Ceylon at the Stephen street Reserve, after which they were brought to Perth and entertained at a luncheon tendered by the board of management of the Perth Hebrew Congregation. They then sailed for Melbourne in the evening...."

Also this:

Sydney Morning Herald, 1 July 1939

"An interesting soccer tour took place during this time of increased tension. In 1939 The Maccabi-Palestine team arrived in Australia for 5 test matches. Overall media response was very negative with suggestions that future tours should only be accepted from members of the Empire. The Sydney Morning Herald of 7th August 1939 described play as ‘wretched’ and stated that it ‘caused resentment among paying spectators’. This assessment is bemusing as although the tourists lost the test series they won 11 and drew 3 of their 19 matches – including big wins over Queensland, Victoria, Melbourne, South Australia and Western Australia.

Despite the negativity Avrah[a]m Reznik, Avrah[a]m Beit HaLevi and Menaham Mirmvotich remained in Australia. According to records at the Australian War Memorial two were killed in action serving Australia:

Menaham Mirvotich (2/11th Battalion - Infantry) died 12 May 1945 in New Guinea

 Abraham Bezalel Beth-Helevy [Anglicised] (2/12th Battalion - Infantry) died 21 January 1944."

http://www.ozfootball.net/museum/index.php/en/tours/253-1939-palestine-tour-of-australia

Sorry to disappoint you and your cohorts, Ahmad. But that's the situation as it was, and not as the Israel-delegitimising movement wishes it had been.

(Cross-posted to News and Jews from Jews Down Under here)

(Talking of matters historical, I see there are renewed calls to boycott the planned Oral History Conference at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Here's a list of  boycott advocates: what an obnoxious bunch of wretches.)