"You're Just a Bunch of Liars": In London, anti-Israel activists get told the truth

At London University's School of Oriental and African Studies yesterday, an Israel-demonising affair didn't go exactly as planned, owing to the presence of a stalwart band of Israel-supporters who told the participants what they didn't want to hear, got ejected for doing so, and are now being slurred as "having ties to the EDL".

(See video, which should be watched to the end, and post here)

That slur is not only baseless but most ironic, given the fact that one of the anti-Israel activists who couldn't attend, but would very much have liked to, is 9/11 truther Tony Gratrex, founder of the Reading PSC, who (see here for example) is widely perceived to be an antisemite:

Moreover, Ms Pinch herself, the Anglican daughter of a Jewish mother from Czechoslovakia if I'm informed correctly, has raised eyebrows in linking to material from the notorious antisemitic Redress site that I understand most PSC types try, publicly at least, to avoid:

(A post of mine regarding Littlewood here)

Some more reactions on Twitter to the SOAS event:

Talking of Iran, our old mate rhe CEO of "Peacemaker Mediators" (freshly fired up with support for Sabeel, btw) has just recorded a Christmas message:

Just what is it about the land of the mullahs that seems to fascinate the ex-vicar so much?  What, oh what, can it be?

David Singer: United Nations Rewrites Balfour Declaration Parliamentary Debate Records

Here's the outcome of a fine piece of sleuthing: the latest important article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.

He writes:

An official United Nations document published by the Division for Palestinian Rights of the United Nations Secretariat contains a deliberately altered record of a 1922 parliamentary House of Lords debate on the Balfour Declaration.

The Balfour Declaration – dated 2 November 1917 – called for the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people – it being clearly understood that nothing would be done which might prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.

The Balfour Declaration was subsequently written into international law after being incorporated into the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine on 24 July 1922.

The upcoming centenary of the Balfour Declaration has prompted a concerted international campaign calling on the British Government to apologise for another Government’s decision taken 100 years ago. Baroness Anelay – Minister of State (Foreign Commonwealth Office) – told the House of Lords on 3 April 2017 that no such apology would be forthcoming.

The UN’s rewriting of Parliamentary debate records actually came to light whilst I was researching the source of a quote appearing in four articles by Stuart Littlewood provocatively headlined

 1. “Who will Finally Heal the “Running Sore in the East”?

 2. “Will the Royal Family Celebrate 100 Years of Shame by Endorsing Israel?”

 3. “Despicable Balfour: A story of betrayal” 

 4. “Jeremy Corbyn: the antidote to the Blairite “virus” and Zionist snake-bite”

All four articles contained the following quote purportedly made in 1922 by a bitter opponent of the Balfour Declaration – Lord Sydenham:

“The harm done by dumping down an alien population upon an Arab country… may never be remedied… What we have done is, by concessions, not to the Jewish people but to a Zionist extreme section, to start a running sore in the East, and no one can tell how far that sore will extend.” 

My research eventually led to a United Nations Study titled “The Origins and Evolution of the Palestine Problem: 1917-1988”  – the Foreword stating:

“This study has been prepared by the Division for Palestinian Rights of the United Nations Secretariat for, and under the guidance of, the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, in pursuance of General Assembly resolution 32/40 B of 2 December 1977.” 

This UN Study claimed Lord Sydenham had said:

"... the harm done by dumping down an alien population upon an Arab country - Arab all around in the hinterland - may never be remedied ... what we have done is, by concessions, not to the Jewish people but to a Zionist extreme section, to start a running sore in the East, and no one can tell how far that sore will extend" 

sourcing this quote to British Hansard  – the official record of parliamentary debates.

However Hansard records Lord Sydenham actually saying on 21 June 1922:

“What we have done is, by concessions, not to the Jewish people but to a Zionist extreme section, to start a running sore in the East, and no one can tell how far that sore will extend. Zionism will fail, the experiment to which the noble Earl referred will fail, but the harm done by dumping down an alien population upon an Arab country—Arab all round in the hinterland— may never be remedied.”

Deliberately rewriting Hansard raises the distinct possibility there may be other similar such instances in this UN Study.

A full investigation by the United Nations Secretariat to discover the reason is urgently required.

An immediate retraction, correction and apology must be made by the UN Secretariat.

Hey, Jeff Halper! What do you think of this, then?

Those who have seen Richard Millett's latest blogpost, regarding the "Bethlehem Unwrapped" anti-Israel hate fest outside St James's Church, Piccadilly, crossposted on CiF Watch, will have seen a video featuring well-known Israeli dissident Jeff Halper. (The nimble black-clad black-hatted photographer clicking enthusiastically away in the background while Halper speaks is of course the Reverend Stephen Sizer, who's posted the fruits of his labours on his own blog and also on flickr.) (Marvellous article here by Robin Shepherd, incidentally, regarding Yuletide illwill against Israel)

I've no idea whether a certain British anti-Israel activist called Stuart Littlewood was at the event described.  But if Jeff Halper catches up with him on his visit to London I trust that Jeff will scold him for yet another of his descents into the dank dark pit of judeophobia.

You see, Jeff Halper wrote the Foreword to Stuart Littlewood's now-out-of-print Israel-demonising Radio Free Palestine.  He was presumably unaware when he did so that Littlewood (apparently a 9/11 truther: "We are not amused by indications that the official explanation of 9/11 doesn’t add up") has acquired quite a reputation for antisemitism.

As I've pointed out before, Littlewood is on record as making such foetid statements as this:

"Jews and Judaism survived 1800 years without the land of Israel, and most of today’s Jews, I’m told, have no ancestral links to that land at all. And Jews seem to like it here in the UK. They are allowed to occupy the highest positions and even make our laws. They are not leaving in droves for a squatter home on stolen Palestinian land."

And this, which was apparently picked up by a neo-Nazi British organisation and which at least one Palestine Solidarity Campaign branch linked to on its website:

"The Jewish population in the UK is 280,000 or 0.46 per cent. There are 650 seats in the House of Commons so, as a proportion, Jewish entitlement is only three seats.

With 24 seats they are eight times over-represented. Which means, of course, that other groups must be under-represented, including Muslims.

The UK's Muslim population is 2.4 million or 3.93 per cent. Their proportional entitlement is 25 seats but they have only eight – a serious shortfall. If Muslims were over-represented to the same extent as the Jews (i.e. eight times) they’d have 200 seats.

Jewish over-representation is only part of our problem. An even bigger worry is the huge number of non-Jew Zionists that have stealthily infiltrated every level of political and institutional life.

 ....Too many pro-Israel MPs speak and act as if they would rather wave the Israeli flag than the Union Jack...."

Recently, Littlewood wrote here regarding an eruv in North London:

'It seems that Jews in England can’t abide their own religious laws any more than their brethren in Israel can cope with international law and humanitarian law. Is this the thin end of a wedge to achieve annexation by the back doorlots of Little Israels in England‘s green and pleasant land? Bushey is already occupied territory, evidently. Whatever next?

 ....Last I heard, England is a Christian country still. Even David “I’m-a-Zionist” Cameron says so. Do we want microcosms of the state of Israel here?

It smacks of psychological warfare aimed at making non-Jewish communities feel vulnerable and unsafe. Presumably the aerial boundaries will be expanded as the ‘ingathering’ proceeds and uncomfortable non-Jewish residents are driven out. How long before those who complain about this creeping annexation of their neighbourhoods, however “symbolic”, are smeared with the anti-Semitic label?

When I was a boy living in Finchley, the bus route to the West End of London ran through Golders Green. Even in those far-off days it was a standing joke that you needed your passport for the trip. How much worse it must seem today now that Golders Green is pegged out with a demarcation boundary of 5.5 metre poles strung together with fishing line.'

 Does Jeff Halper really want to be associated with such a guy?

"Indescribably Sad": Falk's Foetid Fan

From Facebook a week ago (hat tip: reader P)

How indescribably sad it should be for  Richard Falk that he's so desperate for validation that he has to scrape the bottom of a little wood barrel in order to acknowledge the support of a crusader who writes in an online magazine that's eschewed, publicly at least, by the hierarchy of the UK's Palestine Solidarity Campaign owing to its reputation for antisemitism.


In the long article cited in the Facebook link pictured, British anti-Israel ranter Stuart Littlewood, whose absurd ravings not infrequently find ventilation in that rabid publication, observes inter alia:

"Vengeful Zio-schemers sharpen their knives....

And there are millions of us out here who are right behind Richard Falk because he stands for justice. We are not amused by indications that the official explanation of 9/11 doesn’t add up. Nor are we happy that it was used to sucker our own governments into sacrificing troops and treasure in unlawful, unwinnable wars that have caused mega-deaths and endless suffering to innocent civilians, trashed our good name abroad and made us vulnerable to reprisals at home.

And for what? Simply to advance the crazed ambitions of the US-Israeli Axis of Greed...."

Littlewood is on record as making such foetid statements as this:

"Jews and Judaism survived 1800 years without the land of Israel, and most of today’s Jews, I’m told, have no ancestral links to that land at all. And Jews seem to like it here in the UK. They are allowed to occupy the highest positions and even make our laws. They are not leaving in droves for a squatter home on stolen Palestinian land."

And this, which was apparently picked up by a neo-Nazi British organisation and which at least one Palestine Solidarity Campaign branch linked to on its website:

"The Jewish population in the UK is 280,000 or 0.46 per cent. There are 650 seats in the House of Commons so, as a proportion, Jewish entitlement is only three seats.

With 24 seats they are eight times over-represented. Which means, of course, that other groups must be under-represented, including Muslims.

The UK's Muslim population is 2.4 million or 3.93 per cent. Their proportional entitlement is 25 seats but they have only eight – a serious shortfall. If Muslims were over-represented to the same extent as the Jews (i.e. eight times) they’d have 200 seats.

Jewish over-representation is only part of our problem. An even bigger worry is the huge number of non-Jew Zionists that have stealthily infiltrated every level of political and institutional life.

....Too many pro-Israel MPs speak and act as if they would rather wave the Israeli flag than the Union Jack....

It is business as usual between Britain and the rogue state’s amoral thugs, as Sir Gerald Kaufman calls them.”

Sadly for Falk, however, Littlewood is a marginal figure, as ineffectual as veteran anti-Israel campaigner Alan Hart, whose recent tail-between-the-legs withdrawal from the active anti-Zionist fray has left Littlewood "indescribably sad".