An Appalling Advertising Outlet For A Respectable Aussie College

The Chisholm Institute is a respected provider of further education in Australia.  Imagine my friend's surprise, then, when he clicked on a Facebook link and was confronted with the following:

 How appalling that a respectable and respected institution should be (against its will or knowledge I have no doubt) featured in an ad on such a page.  My friend assumes he is seeing this ad because the fact that he attended a similar college to Chisholm appears in his Facebook profile.

The ad, by the way, appears in the article linked to by this piece of slime:

Strange what Facebook tolerates, eh?

David Singer On Palestinian Violence: "Continuing Jew-hatred Must Extract A Heavy Price"

This video (hat tip: Shirlee), of the bloodied scene following this week's atrocity in a Jerusalem synagogue, contains graphic images.  They are a grim testimony to what two evil men have done in a house of worship to peaceful persons engaged in prayer; nevertheless, some people might feel that they are best kept out of the public domain, so please think carefully whether you wish to view them.

In the immediate wake of that atrocity, and on the theme of how such manifestations of Jew-hatred should be answered, comes the latest article by Australian lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.

He writes:

An obscene reaction by a Palestinian hatemonger

The slaughter of four rabbis with axes, knives and guns whilst praying in a synagogue along with the serious wounding of six other Jews caught in this horrific blood bath – and the murder of a Druze police officer who went to their rescue – is the end result of endemic Jew-hatred:

1. Begun in the 1920 Jerusalem riots

2. Embodied in the 1964 PLO Covenant, and

3. Reinforced in the 1987 Hamas Charter  

 Arab Jew-hatred has continued unabated for the last 90 years since the Jewish people’s right to self- determination was unanimously endorsed by the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the UN Charter.

Alarm bells warning of this week’s massacre should have sounded loud and clear when American Secretary of State John Kerry visited Israel on 2 January following Israel releasing 26 long term Palestinian Arab prisoners convicted of murder and other serious criminal offences.

 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presciently told Kerry on that occasion:

“A few days ago in Ramallah, President Abbas embraced [these] terrorists as heroes. To glorify the murders of innocent women and men as heroes is an outrage. How can President Abbas says – how can he say that he stands against terrorism when he embraces the perpetrators of terrorism and glorifies them as heroes? He can’t stand against terrorists and stand with the terrorists. And I’m wondering what a young Palestinian would think when he sees the leader of the Palestinian people embrace people who axed innocent men and women – axed their heads or blew them up or riddled them with bullets – what’s a young Palestinian supposed to think about the future? What’s he supposed to think about what he should do vis-a-vis Israelis and vis-a-vis the state of Israel? So it’s not surprising that in recent weeks Israel has been subjected to a growing wave of terrorist attacks. President Abbas didn’t see fit to condemn these attacks even after we learned that at least in one case – I stress, at least in one case – those who served and are serving in the Palestinian security forces took part in them.”

Among those 26 prisoners released were:

   1. Yakoub Muhammad Ouda Ramadan, Afana Mustafa Ahmad Muhammad, and Da’agna Nufal Mahmad Mahmoud – convicted of stabbing Sara Sharon, 37, to death in Holon on January 20, 1993.

    2. Abu Mohsin Khaled Ibrahim Jamal – convicted of the ambush and murder of Shlomo Yahya, a 76-year-old gardener, in a public park in Moshav Kadima and stabbing him to death.

    3. Barham Fawzi Mustafa Nasser – convicted for the murder of Morris (Moshe) Edri 65 – a former employer of Nasser who Nasser ambushed and stabbed in the back. 

    4. Muammar Ata Mahmoud Mahmoud and Salah Khalil Ahmad Ibrahim – convicted of murdering Menahem Stern, a history professor at Hebrew University. Stern, 64, a winner of the prestigious Israel Prize, was stabbed to death while walking to work at the university’s Givat Ram campus on June 22, 1989.

   5.  Abu Hadir Muhammad Yassin Yassin – convicted for the murder of Yigal Shahaf – shooting him in the head as he and his wife were walking through Jerusalem’s old city toward the Western Wall.

Netanyahu then told Kerry to his face:

“In the six months since the start of peace negotiations, the Palestinian Authority continues its unabated incitement against the state of Israel. This Palestinian Government incitement is rampant. You see it in the state-controlled media – the government-controlled media – in the schools, in textbooks, in kindergartens. You see it at every part of Palestinian society. So instead of preparing Palestinians for peace, Palestinian leaders are teaching them to hate Israel. This is not the way to achieve peace. President Abbas must lead his people away from terror and incitement, towards reconciliation and peace.”

Kerry failed to address this virulent Jew-hatred motivating Palestinian Arabs to murder Jews - ignored the adulation afforded these convicted murderers by Abbas and remained silent on the rampant incitement conducted on a daily basis against Israel.

Instead – Kerry – apparently languishing in a time warp – sought to provide some comforting reassurance for Netanyahu with these incredibly inane remarks:

“On a personal level, last month I travelled to Vietnam on my first visit there as Secretary of State. And the transformation in our relationship – I was a young soldier who fought there – the transformation in our relationship is proof that as painful as the past can be, through hard work of diplomacy history’s adversaries can actually become partners for a new day and history’s challenges can become opportunities for a new age.”

Kerry’s words have turned out to be a massive misjudgement. 

It is surely time for America and the European Union especially - and for the rest of the international community generally - to take stock and make clear that:

1. no further financial aid will be given in either Gaza or the West Bank

 2. Abbas and his Government will be regarded as persona non-grata 

until:

(i) the insidious Jew-hating provisions in the PLO Covenant and Hamas Charter are repealed

 (ii) Government-controlled media and schools excise all references denigrating and demeaning Jews.

(iii) The PLO is prepared to recognise Israel as the nation state of the Jewish People in any peace agreement signed by Israel and the PLO.

Failure to so act can only see the Jewish-Arab conflict spiralling out of control into a crisis of catastrophic proportions.

Should such Jew-hatred continue – this heavy price must be extracted. 

There Can Be No Peace So Long As Palestinians Peddle Antisemitism Argues David Singer

Last week, CiF Watch's Adam Levick  produced a magnificent piece entitled "Jewish reaction to antisemitism in the Arab world: no riots, no injuries, no deaths" replete with pictorial examples of the antisemitism that bedevils the Muslim world.  CiF Watch subsequently cross-posted a compellingly informative article from Palestinian Media Watch regarding the routine demonisation of Jews ("depicted as beasts, evil, satanic") in the media of the Palestinian Authority.

In this, the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer, the focus is on antisemitism among Palestinian Arabs, and why it's an impediment to a true and lasting peace with Israel.  The article is entitled "Palestine: End The Jew Hatred, End The Conflict".

Writes David Singer:

'The universal international condemnation of the anti-Islamic film "Innocence of Muslims" – whilst defending at the same time the freedom of individuals to express those abhorrent views – has come in response to the anger and violence that has broken out in many Moslem populations around the world and cost the lives of the American Ambassador to Libya – J. Christopher Stevens – and three other members at the Embassy in Benghazi on September 11.

Such reactions need to be compared with the continuing failure to condemn, repudiate, and disassociate from the official policies of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Hamas when it comes to extreme vilification and denigration of Jews.

These vile statements do not emanate from individuals – but from organizations that seek to assume leadership roles in any future Palestinian Arab State.

The original PLO Charter in 1964 - contained the following provisions in Articles 7 and 18:

"Jews of Palestinian origin are considered Palestinians if they are willing to live peacefully and loyally in Palestine"

"The claims of historic and spiritual ties, ties between Jews and Palestine are not in agreement with the facts of history or with the true basis of sound statehood. Judaism because it is a divine religion is not a nationality with independent existence. Furthermore the Jews are not one people with an independent personality because they are citizens of the countries to which they belong."

In 1968 these statements were revised and the following provisions appeared as part of Articles 6 and 20 in the newly adopted PLO Charter:

"The Jews who had normally resided in Palestine until the beginning of the Zionist invasion will be considered Palestinians"

 "Judaism, being a religion, is not an independent nationality. Nor do Jews constitute a single nation with an identity of its own; they are citizens of the states to which they belong."

In 1974 the PLO was appointed as the sole spokesman for the Palestinian Arabs, and its leader,Yasser Arafat, was welcomed to the United Nations with an olive branch in one hand and a gun in the other.

Since then the PLO has progressed its above-declared racist policy of recovering every square meter of former Palestine and denying all Jews any right to Palestinian nationality in any part of former Palestine. It refuses to acknowledge Israel as the national home of the Jewish people.

The PLO is perfectly entitled to maintain and propagate its vile and racist program – but the civilized world should show its repugnance and rejection of such policy – and its refusal to recognize or endorse such a hate-filled program.

The President of the United States should refuse to welcome PLO leader Mahmoud Abbas to the White House or maintain any diplomatic discourse with the head of such an Organization. Let President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton issue such a declaration.

Other countries that have come out so strongly against "Innocence of Muslims" should be equally as responsive in rejecting the retention of these racist provisions in the constitution of an Organization they deal with.  Financial assistance – now running into billions of dollars – should be discontinued until these provisions are removed.

Should Islam, being a religion – indeed a divine religion – be treated by the world in the same way Islam seeks to denigrate the Jews?  Should the 56 Islamic member states forming the Organization of Islamic Co-Operation be denied any national identity or national recognition  as Islamic states?  Clearly  not.

At the same time, Jews need to be treated differently by these Islamic states, which – with the exception of Egypt and Jordan – still have not recognized Israel after 64 years of concerted and ongoing efforts to deny the Jews a state in their biblical and ancestral homeland since Israel was established in 1948.

The 1988 Hamas Charter is equally as virulent in its steadfast opposition to Jews, Jewish statehood and Christianity – declaring in Article 13 (among many offensive provisions):

"Now and then the call goes out for the convening of an international conference to look for ways of solving the (Palestinian) question. Some accept, others reject the idea, for this or other reason, with one stipulation or more for consent to convening the conference and participating in it. Knowing the parties constituting the conference, their past and present attitudes towards Moslem problems, the Islamic Resistance Movement does not consider these conferences capable of realising the demands, restoring the rights or doing justice to the oppressed. These conferences are only ways of setting the infidels in the land of the Moslems as arbitrators. When did the infidels do justice to the believers?

"But the Jews will not be pleased with thee, neither the Christians, until thou follow their religion; say, The direction of Allah is the true direction. And verily if thou follow their desires, after the knowledge which hath been given thee, thou shalt find no patron or protector against Allah." (The Cow - verse 120).

There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors. The Palestinian people know better than to consent to having their future, rights and fate toyed with. As in said in the honourable Hadith:

"The people of Syria are Allah's lash in His land. He wreaks His vengeance through them against whomsoever He wishes among His slaves It is unthinkable that those who are double-faced among them should prosper over the faithful. They will certainly die out of grief and desperation."

Hamas has been banned as a terrorist organization in many countries around the world.

That is not enough.

It should be similarly banned from any form of contact or receive financial assistance of any sort whatsoever whilst it retains such inflammatory and offensive statements in its Charter. 

Those who meet with its officials and representatives should be condemned for engaging in and giving encouragement to such Jew-hating and Christianity-hating incitement.

Those who have voted such an organization into power and do nothing to seek a change in its Charter or to overthrow it must bear the consequences of their decisions.

Jew-hatred – more than anything else – has been the driver in ending the 130-years-old conflict between Jews and Arabs. It did not begin in 1967.

Until it is stamped out and removed from the official policies of those representing the Palestinian Arabs - no real resolution of the conflict between Jews and Arabs can ever occur.

Band aids – yes. But a lasting peace – never.' 

Palestine: Racy Left-Liberal Double Standards

Here's our old friend, London-based Abdel Bari Atwan, editor-in-chief of the pan-Arab newspaper al-Quds al-Arabi, and long one of left-liberal Al Beeb's very favourite studio pundits as well as a pin-up boy of the like-minded Guardian (he was recently claimed by Gaddafi's Libyan foes to have been on the colonel's payroll, incidentally), telling an Arabic network what Arafat said about Jews:

And here he is spilling the beans on what Arafat really thought of the Oslo Accords:

Eye-opening stuff, huh?

Here's Dr Atwan again, back in 2007, saying something very spiteful indeed about Israel.  Judging from the number of times he's appeared on Al Beeb since then, the outburst apparently served to make the Beeboids (as the much-to-be-recommended Biased BBC website terms them) revere him all the more (I believe they've kept rather shtum about that Gaddafi payroll allegation):

Here's a par-for-the-course statement from Hamas about Israel and its sympathisers as well as about Jews and Christians in particular:

Of course, Al Beeb, which never publicises the genocidal document that is the Hamas Charter, is always very careful not to reveal such tidbits that serve to blunt the Bowen arrows it shoots in Israel's direction.

I refer you to the pictorial examples of Palestinian antisemitism here, where the very pertinent observation is made:

'The Palestinian cause is increasingly supported by western "progressives" who also claim to be champions for tolerance, pluralism, and minority rights [yet] have been too willing to ignore the basic and unfortunate fact that racism, homophobia, xenophobia, and anti-Semitism are widespread and accepted in Palestinian society.'

And as Benjamin Weinthal observes in a masterly commentary on the excrescence that is Durban 111, no less than 18 of the 27 European Union states - representatives, for the most part, of the Western liberal tradition - have betrayed Western value by attending that forum despite its deep taint of antisemitism.

Open Season’s Greetings – Taking the Jew out of Jesus and other Tricks of the Israel-Delegitimising Trade

The commercial prelude to Christmas is in full swing, and as usual there’s a brisk trade in cards. I’ve been looking at some of the cards on offer from pro-Palestinian organisations and NGOs, and in those cases the images chosen are for maximum political impact. Obviously, for some of these bodies, the Yuletide season means Open Season on Israel – or I should say an intensified, star-of-Bethlehem-tinged open season (since open season for them is throughout the year).

The Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign offers a ten-card set depicting the madonna in Palestinian colours, holding her infant; I think she’s intended to convey the impression that she and her son – no introductions are required – were Palestinian rather than Jewish. The same PSC also offers a ten-card set depicting the Three Wise Men unable to get into Bethlehem owing to Israel’s “Wall”.

In fact, that wall – or rather, security barrier, erected to protect Israeli citizens from terror attacks, looms large on cards this Christmas (some scenes are recycled from previous years). (See "Hijacked by Hatred": British NGOs Use Christmas for anti-Israel Attacks www.ngo-monitor.org/article.php?id=2202)  Here is its depiction on a card offered by Australians for Palestine, and here’s the inside message, below:

The Amos Trust has a similar card on offer, depicting a Father Christmas or Santa Claus striding beside that wall, but it also has this card, of a swaddled babe – who is he meant to portray if not the “Christ child”? – and beneath him are the words “Made in Palestine”.

The Nazis, I’ve heard tell, attempted to reinvent Jesus as an Aryan – the son of a Roman soldier. These days, he’s more likely to be reinvented as a “Palestinian”. Sometimes, this is done in a snide fashion, stopping short of actually de-judaising him. For instance, one of the captions at Rod Cox’s ever-travelling UK-wide exhibition of Israel-demonising children’s drawings from Gaza noted – at least when I saw it – that Palestine was the birthplace of Jesus; placed at the approximate eye-level of an average eight-year-old, it was apparently calculated to influence impressionable young minds.

The fiction that Jesus – the Jew, of Judea – was a Palestinian (despite the fact that Palestine was a term imposed on his country after his lifetime by Romans anxious to obliterate its Jewishness by naming it after the land of the Philistines ) is peddled by some elements within the churches, is implied in some of the literature of leftwing anti-Israel groups, and is seen in this quite shocking poem by a Christian pro-Palestinian activist in the United States (emphasis hers; I’m not linking to her blog because I’ve no desire to increase its traffic):

Christ was a Palestinian
And unto us
a new era is born
The Phoenix
rising from the flames
of "Israel"
In seeing the Israeli made myths
and violence now
as the information age explodes
We Know
We know that what was remembered then
was for power- not for truth
We know that Israel usurped land and rights – and even the story itself
Now and then
We know that Israeli crimes
are all the more wrong as they claim
to be for God
We know
Now and then
We know that the only known political fact
is simply that the prophet and saviour
Christ
was a Palestinian...
And we know that he deployed
Parables to free the people
from tyranny
of every type
Parables
to compel humankind to be both human
and kind
Parables
not guns
A dialog
not guns
Life
not death
We know that Christ is resurrection...
and we know that Palestine was then – and will be again
somehow
We know
and this faith
shall light our way
no matter what
This faith
will transcend the hate mongering
and sorrow and suffering...
This faith
will heal
the many wounds
made by "Israel"
and the many mistakes
made by all people
trying to find peace
in a troubled world
This faith will rebuild Palestine
one day
This faith will free the people
one by one
to transcend the many tyrannies
of our time
For Christ really was, is and always will be
a Palestinian....

As Israel’s deputy foreign minister Danny Ayalon wrote recently (27 November) in the Jerusalem Post, the Palestinians are not only denying the Jews’ historic rights to those holy sites the Western Wall and Rachel’s Tomb, they deny the Jewishness of Jesus:

“The myth that Jesus was a Palestinian is told to anyone who arrives on a pilgrimage to Bethlehem or other Christian holy sites under the Palestinian Authority.

However, the facts once again don’t add up. The Jewish province of Judea was destroyed by Roman Emperor Hadrian in 135 C.E. when the Romans quashed the Bar Kochba-led Jewish revolt. To sever the Jewish connection with the Land of Israel, the Roman emperor changed its name to Syria Palaestina, eventually becoming known in English as Palestine.

According to Christian scholars, Jesus was crucified somewhere between 26 and 36, a full hundred years before the term Palestine had even been coined.

The world at that time did not have a single mosque and Islam and the Arab conquest of this land was still six centuries away.

I don’t know what if anything schoolchildren are taught these days about history and religion, but it’s clear many are woefully if not wilfully ignorant.'

"Christianity was started by a young Palestinian named Jesus" is just one of one of hundreds of distortions, misrepresentations and falsehoods found about Judaism and Jewish history by a recent comprehensive study of the 28 most widely used social studies textbooks in the United States. http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/127797

Even the BBC’s College of Journalism website gets the facts only half right: “Jesus and his immediate circle of twelve disciples were all Jewish men who lived in Palestine [hey, Al Beeb, make that Judea!] about two thousand years ago.” Did I say “even?” Silly me. When she was still reporting from the Middle East for Al Beeb, the horrendous Orla Guerin made a particularly loathsome broadcast from Bethlehem one Christmas, I recall.

As that inestimable site Palestine Media Watch has demonstrated, well before the first intifada the Palestinian Authority was busily re-writing history to undermine and thus delegitimize the historic Jewish claim to the land and to Jesus. Here are some examples from its files: 

“Nazareth: The city where the Jews murdered the first Palestinian of its [Nazareth's] sons.” Al-Hayat Al-Jadida (Fatah), 24 Jan. 2000;

Yasser Abu Ciedo, Palestinian artist: "Our struggle today against the other [Israel] is an eternal one. It started 2000 years ago and continues until today. I demonstrate this through the figure of Jesus, who came to the world with a message of justice and the other side did what they did to him. Here [he shows a painting] I demonstrate the following idea: the Israeli soldiers are wearing army uniforms while Jesus has nothing except for the truth. This is the Palestinian from the beginning of the struggle until its end - if it will ever end..."  Palestinian TV (Fatah), 21 July 2000;

“The Palestinian Galilee village [in Israel] of Kfar Kana takes pride in the fact that here the Palestinian Messiah [Jesus] succeeded in turning water into wine.”  Al-Hayat Al-Jadida (Fatah), 14 Dec. 2004;

“The Shahids (Martyrs) will cry, ‘We shook the palm trees alongside Lady Earth and the lady of the people, the Virgin Mary, and with her son the first Palestinian Shahid (died for Allah).” Al-Hayat Al-Jadida (Fatah), 17 Jan. 2005;

“They [Christians] read in the holy book [the Bible] the name of 'Palestine' and the real [Palestinian] names of our villages and cities… We must not forget the Messiah [Jesus] is Palestinian, the son of Mary the Palestinian.” Al-Hayat Al-Jadida (Fatah), 18 Nov. 2005 [Palestine Media Watch  Comment: The PA assumes that few Palestinians read the Hebrew and Christian Bibles. For were Palestinians to read the Bible they would learn that Jesus was a Jew, there was no “Palestine,” and the Hebrew names used by Israel today, including the name “Land of Israel,” are the names found in the Bible];

"It was quite natural that the Palestinians rose to save their sanctuaries [in Nazareth in Galilee]… since lord Messiah [Jesus] and his mother [Mary] are both Galileans and Palestinians." Al-Hayat Al-Jadida (Fatah), 9 March 2006; “Christianity was born in our Arab countries and the Messiah [Jesus] is a Syrian Palestinian, born in Nazareth.” Al-Hayat Al-Jadida (Fatah), 28 Oct. 2006;

“Palestinians are used to death like this. The suffering of the first Palestinian – the Messiah – started with the Last Supper.” Al-Hayat Al-Jadida (Fatah), 30 April 2008;

"We must not forget that the Messiah [Jesus], peace be upon him, is Palestinian, the son of Mary the Palestinian, who is sanctified by hundreds of millions of believers in this world." Al-Hayat Al-Jadida (Fatah), 18 Nov. 2008;

Palestinian Mufti Muhammad Hussein: "We're talking about an ongoing chain [of prophets of Islam], from Adam to Muhammad, representing the call for monotheism and the mission of Islam… The prophets were all of the same religion [Islam]… [e.g.] Jesus was born in this land in Bethlehem… He also lived in Nazereth, moved to Jerusalem, so he was a Palestinian … We respect Jesus, we believe in him [as a prophet of Islam], just as we believe in the prophet Muhammad." Palestinian TV (Fatah), 21 April 2009);

"The Pope's visit is an opportunity for the Palestinian leadership to present its cause… so that His Honor [the Pope] will assume his religious and political responsibility towards the people of the Holy Land, the Arab Palestinian people, the people of the Messiah [Jesus]." Al-Hayat Al-Jadida (Fatah), 9 May 2009;

Palestinian Authority Mufti Muhammad Hussein: "Jesus was born in this land; he took his first steps in this land and spread his teachings [of Islam] in this land. He and his mother [Mary], we may say, were Palestinians par excellence." Palestinian TV (Fatah), 12 May 2009;

Dr Tayseer Al-Tamimi, PA Chief Justice of Religious Court, and Chairman of Supreme Council of Islamic Law: "Jesus is the only Palestinian prophet." Palestinian TV (Fatah), 9 June 2009;

Mustafa Barghouti ,: "We always remember that Jesus was the first Palestinian who was tortured in this land". Palestinian TV (Fatah), Christmas Eve, 2009;

Fatah Communications and Education Authority statement in honor of International Women's Day from the official Fatah website, 8 March 2010 : "If we are proud of the holiness of our land, then we are proud and pride ourselves that the first and most important holy woman among the nations and peoples is from the holy land: The Virgin Mary - the woman of love and peace - is of the nation of Palestine, whose roots are grounded in the depths of history. Our movement takes note of its pride in all the women Shahidas (Martyrs), prisoners, Palestinian fighters, who have become a model of sacrifice and a school that teaches the meaning of giving and of sacrifice." (http://www.palvoice.com/index.php?id=23043)

All this is the legacy of Arafat’s ploy in the mid-1990s to choose the Church of the Nativity to declare that "This is the birthplace of our Lord the Messiah, the Palestinian" and to thereby portray, as they did in a Nativity pageant, the Palestinians as Jesus rejected and crucified and IDF paratroopers as the Roman Legion, the Israeli government as merciless, expansionist Imperial Rome, and rightwing settlers and their supporters as the Jews who declined to accept the divinity of Jesus' message. What lent Arafat credibility in his avowals of inclusiveness for Bethlehem’s Christians – 80 per cent of the town’s population in 1948 – was his marriage to a Christian and his frequent statements that he would fly the Palestinian flag "from the churches and from the mosques," mentioning the churches first. The second intifada or Al Aqsa uprising –pointedly named for a mosque – marked the turning point, along with with a rising global tide of Islamisation.

As Dr Hanan Chehata, public relations director at Middle East Monitor (MEMO), has observed, “in the last few decades there has been a perceptible exodus of Christians from the Holy Land.... Whereas a few decades ago the number of Christians in Bethlehem, the city in which Jesus was born, was estimated to be around 70%, now they constitute well below a third of the total population.” (Some estimates say only 15 per cent.) What she does not admit is that the principal reason for their accelerated decline in numbers is flight not from Israel but from Islam; their immigration to the United States and other venues overseas is due to their sense of marginalisation as Islamification proceeds apace and their fear for their future as Islamic fundamentalists lay claim to all of the Holy Land as exclusively Islamic territory. http://www.middleeastmonitor.org.uk/.../347-the-plight-and-flight-of-palestinian-%20christians

War on Want offered this card (pictured) last year, and I wonder how many of the BDS-advocating churches will be singing alternate words to well-known carols this Christmas, such as this one, which made its debut in London in 2008 with the avid support of certain NGOs:

Once in Royal David’s City,
Stood a big apartheid wall,
People entering and leaving,
Had to pass a checkpoint hall,
Bethlehem was strangulated,
And her children segregated.

Though this city is a symbol
To the world of peace and love,
Concrete walls have closed around her,
Settlements expand above.
And apartheid Israel stands
All around on stolen lands.
David’s people once instructed
All the world in righteousness;
Prophets spoke of truth and justice;
Israel’s leaders now oppress.
All who look at Bethlehem
Must speak out the truth to them.

Or this:

On the twelfth day of Christmas, Israel sent to me
Twelve assassinations,
Eleven homes demolished,
Ten wells obstructed,
Nine sniper towers,
Eight gunships firing,
Seven checkpoints blocking,
Six tanks a-rolling,
Five settlement rings.
Four falling bombs,
Three trench guns,
Two trampled doves,
And an uprooted olive tree.


Or how about this choice example of the demoniser’s art?

The olive and the army
When they are both full-grown,
Every olive tree on the West Bank
The IDF cuts down.
O the rampaging of settlers
And the rolling of the tanks;
The grinding of the bulldozers
As the olives fall in ranks.
The olive bears a berry
As green as any grass;
When the owners go to pick the fruit
They’re not allowed to pass.
O the rampaging of settlers
And the rolling of the tanks;
The grinding of the bulldozers
As the olives fall in ranks.
This oppression bears a berry
As red as any blood,
As the owners see their livelihoods
All trampled in the mud.
O the rampaging of settlers
And the rolling of the tanks;
The grinding of the bulldozers
As the olives fall in ranks.
If you want to buy the olives,
You’ll find it very hard.
For those that make it to checkpoints
Still the way outside is barred.
O the rampaging of settlers
And the rolling of the tanks;
The grinding of the bulldozers
As the olives fall in ranks.
The olive and the army,
When they are both full-grown,
Every olive tree on the West Bank
The IDF cuts down.