David Singer: Israel Elections Should Send Clear Message to Trump, PLO, EU and UN

Here's the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.

He writes:

Israeli voters at the forthcoming elections on 9 April should be given the opportunity to send President Trump, the PLO, EU and UN a clear message on what they want to see happening in Judea Samaria and East Jerusalem (West Bank) and Gaza – the last 5 per cent of the territory comprised in the Mandate for Palestine where sovereignty remains unresolved between Jews and Arabs (“disputed territories”).

For this to happen - all political parties need to state in clear and unambiguous terms what their policies in relation to the disputed territories will be if they form part of the next Government.

The options and the choices are many – and include:

* Continuing to press for a negotiated “two-state solution” – the creation of an Arab State – in addition to Jordan – in all or part of the disputed territories

* Annexing all or part of the disputed territories

* Creating Jordanian enclaves in all or part of the disputed territories

* Maintaining the status quo without any further negotiations

* Redrawing the international borders between Israel, Jordan and Egypt

Co-head of the frontrunner Blue and White Party – Benny Gantz – needs to do better than stating:

“The main question is that of security. It [the Government] needs to ensure the State of Israel's security. Now, there's a question of interest here. We — and Netanyahu said this in his Bar-Ilan speech (a 2009 address in which the prime minister backed Palestinian statehood) — are not looking to control anyone else. We need to find a way in which we're not controlling other people.”

Is Gantz talking about the Arab populations in the disputed territories? 95 per cent of the Arab population in Judea and Samaria is under PLO control. 100 per cent of Gaza’s Arabs-only population is under Hamas control. East Jerusalem Arabs are under Israel’s control.

Gantz must articulate his plan for ending what he sees as Israel’s control of other people.

Gantz’s partner Yair Lapid expressed the following view in 2008:

“The greatest tragedy of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is that everyone knows how it will end. We will divide up the region. Israel will return most of the West Bank, and the Palestinian flag will fly on public buildings in East Jerusalem. The only unanswered question is how many more people will have to die along the way. And so we will fight against the extremists on both sides, including our extremists, the settlers. When you look at the history of wars, they ultimately revolve around one claim: "My god is better than yours."

Is this still Lapid’s view in 2019? He  – like Gantz – owes it to the electorate to spell out his party’s position should it be in the next Government.

Netanyahu needs to state what the Likud Party’s policy is right now – not what it might have been in 2009 or at any time since. All political parties seeking election must do likewise.

Views held in 2008 or 2009 are irrelevant – raking over old coals is counter-productive.

Gantz is right in recognising that security is the main question at this election – as it always has been.
All the promises and allure of a better and more prosperous society, equality and justice for all  – even going to the moon and back – count for nought if those voting are murdered, injured or traumatised to not enjoy the benefits.

President Trump needs to know what outcomes the Israelis want for the disputed territories before issuing his long-anticipated “deal of the century” very soon after the elections. The PLO, EU and UN need to also listen digest and respond.

The time for straight-talking on the disputed territories is right now.

"Antisemitism is not a Jewish Problem. It is a Problem for Jews"

Two letters: ratbags versus realists regarding Corbynista antisemitism.

But first, a not irrelevant archival find by University of Aberystwyth international politics academic Dr James Vaughan, regarding Labour Party policy in not-so-far-off days of yore:

Okay, then, this letter by as-a-Jew leftists to the Guardian, 21 February:

"You report (19 February) that a number of implacably anti-Corbyn MPs have left the Labour party alleging a failed “approach to dealing with antisemitism”, with Luciana Berger criticising Labour for becoming “sickeningly institutionally racist”.

We are Jewish members and supporters of the Labour party concerned about the current rise of reactionary ideologies, including antisemitism, in Britain and elsewhere across Europe.

We note the worrying growth of populist rightwing parties, encouraging racism, Islamophobia and antisemitism. In Britain the far right is whipping up these prejudices, a threat that requires a resolute and energetic response. But instead we have seen a disproportionate focus on antisemitism on the left, which is abhorrent but relatively rare.

We believe that the Labour party under the progressive leadership of Jeremy Corbyn is a crucial ally in the fight against bigotry and reaction. His lifetime record of campaigning for equality and human rights, including consistent support for initiatives against antisemitism, is formidable. His involvement strengthens this struggle.

Labour governments introduced both the anti-racist and human rights legislation of the 20th century and the 2010 Equalities Act. A Labour government led by Jeremy Corbyn will be a powerful force to fight against racism, Islamophobia and antisemitism.

It is in this context that we welcome the Labour party’s endorsement of freedom of expression on Israel and on the rights of Palestinians. Labour is correct to recognise that while prejudice against Jewish people is deplorable, criticism of Israel’s government and policies can and must be made.
We urge all who wish to see an end to bigotry and racism, and who seek a more just society, to give their support to the Labour party."

For signatories see here

A riposte in the Guardian, 25 February:

'We write in response to the letter you published on 21 February, asserting that Jeremy Corbyn was a crucial ally in the fight against bigotry and reaction and that a Labour government would be a powerful force against antisemitism.

The signatories to that letter plainly feel the need to rely on their Judaism to bolster its content. This may be because they consider it to be some protection from the view that many of your readers would otherwise take when reading their assertions, but it is essentially irrelevant. The vast majority of the UK Jewish community has made its view of Mr Corbyn clear. So too has the public in various opinion polls. He is not trusted on antisemitism, first because he has not acted against it and because his own actions are, at least, concerning. Second, because those claiming to speak about antisemitism in his name do so without reproach or disassociation.

The Labour party has, previously, been a force for good in promoting anti-racism, as the authors acknowledge. Sadly, that is no longer the case. It has never been the case, anywhere, that a party which could not root out antisemitism from its midst, tolerated those accusing Jews of manufacturing it, and lost the trust of the Jewish community, ever governed fairly, decently or competently. Antisemitism is corruption, and corruption spreads.

We also disagree with the authors’ apparent belief that the ability to criticise Israel is critical to the debate on antisemitism. The Labour party’s adoption of the IHRA definition marks its acceptance of the fact that criticism of Israel must not involve antisemitism, and that there is a wide range of acceptable criticism that does not. The discredited argument that antisemitism is invented by Jews to protect Israel is antisemitic. So is criticism of Israel outside the IHRA guidelines and definition. Both of these things should be outwith the scope of mainstream, tolerant debate.

Suggesting a permissible link between the Labour leadership’s attitude to British Jews and Israel is both wrong and shameful. There is no basis to refuse to reproach or reject the antisemites we refer to above. The leadership’s failure to do so makes Jews part of the “few”, who the Labour party expressly reject.

That Labour is so mistrusted on the issue is uncomfortable and sad. But it must be said. And in saying it, we do not speak as Jews, but as citizens of this country. Antisemitism is not a Jewish problem. It is a problem for Jews.'

For signatories see here

Danger Man Dissected

Unsurprisingly, the defection of principled men and women from the cesspool that is the Corbyn-led Labour Party continues.

Three years ago, during the furore surrounding despicable comments regarding Hitler and Zionism made by former London mayor Ken Livingstone, who quit the Labour Party in 2018,  Labour MP Ian Austin, whose Jewish adoptive father arrived in England from Czechoslovakia as a ten-year-old in 1939, made (top left) what many Twitter users consider his finest tweet.

A few days ago, disgusted by the antisemitism that lurks in Labour's ranks, resigned from the party, telling the BBC's Kirsty Wark in an interview that if he remained he would no longer be able to look his father (whose immediate family was murdered in Treblinka) and his Jewish friends in the eye.

"I was one of the first to raise concerns about antisemitism following events at the 2017 Conference in Brighton", wrote a Brighton and Hove Councillor Warren Morgan a couple of days ago, explaining his resignation from the Labour Party, which he joined in 1993.

"It was my duty as council leader, as a Labour councillor, to call out racism wherever and whenever it appeared, without fear or favour, in defence of the city's Jewish community. For that I was vilified by members locally and supporters of Jeremy Corbyn nationally.

Friends in the Jewish Labour Movement urged me not to resign my membership, as others have done, in response to the unchecked and rampant antisemitism amongst Party members, in order to fight back and clear the Party of those with racist antisemitic views. I have done so until now. The resignation of Luciana Berger from the Party is a clear sign that members of the Jewish community and those who support them have no place in Labour."

Investigative journalist Tom Bower's searing exposé of Jeremy Corbyn's problem with da Joos published last week in the Jewish Chronicle must be actingas a final straw for some Labour members, and it is only to be regretted that the revelations it contains, uncovered during Mr Bower's researches for his just-published biography of Corbyn, Dangerous Hero,were not known and publicised before Corbyn was elected party leader.

Here, by the way, is anti-Israel hard leftist John McDonnell's insolent tweet regarding the biography.

McDonnell, a handpicked member of Corbyn's team and Shadow Chancellor, no less, showed his vile hostility Jews and Israel again last week when he called for Britons who fought in the IDF to be deprived of their British citizenship.

Writes Mr Bower, the son of child refugees from Prague and Vienna respectively, iner alia:

'I am among the few living people who interviewed for TV serious Nazi war criminals....

Like those antisemitic Nazis, Mr Corbyn blames the malign power of Jews for orchestrating a global conspiracy to oppress the workers. “The power of the Israel lobby is truly phenomenal,” Mr Corbyn said in 2003 to Hamas supporters, referring to his conviction that rich Jewish bankers, especially in New York, are orchestrating Zionist influence.

Ever since Mr Corbyn was elected Labour’s leader in 2015, he has faced accusations about his antisemitism, which he has denied. However, while researching the book I came across an interview he gave in September 2015 which confirms Mr Corbyn’s antisemitism.

Unsuspecting, Mr Corbyn had settled down in front of a microphone to help a local historian compile eyewitness accounts for The Holloway Project. Mr Corbyn was asked to describe his attachment to the Holloway Road, an ugly highway running through Islington, his north London constituency. But before identifying his favourite places along that dust bowl, he described his early life and, most noteworthy, his first job in London in 1973 as an assistant researcher at the National Union of Tailor and Garment Workers.

In Mr Corbyn’s version, as the most junior employee he personally challenged the Jewish employers of his members — “scumbags” and “crooks”, as he would describe the tailors — to recover the members’ unpaid wages. Their bosses, explained Mr Corbyn, “had mysteriously gone bankrupt just before Christmas, owing their workers a lot of wages and not paying National Insurance and all this kind of thing. Scumbags actually. Crooks. My job was to try and chase these people through Companies House and so on.”

Mr Corbyn’s account is contradicted by Alec Smith, the union’s former leader and Mr Corbyn’s direct superior, now in his eighties, who I tracked down in Essex, and by the trade union’s well-catalogued records.

Pertinently, the union’s archives stored at universities in London and Manchester do not reveal any issues about “unscrupulous employers” and do not show that any member complained about being unpaid, especially before Christmas.

Mr Smith told me with certainty that Mr Corbyn “never had any contact with our members. He just sat in at meetings passing me information”. Mr Smith recalled: “The clothing industry is a tough business. If an employer went broke it was because of trading conditions — not to fiddle their employees.”

Not for the first time, Mr Corbyn had reshaped the truth to improve his self-image. He conjured the tale of a brave personal fight against exploitative Jewish employers of sweatshop labour and exposed his disdain towards those Jews seeking self-improvement to fulfil the dream of moving from the East End slums to North London’s suburbs.'

Bower, whose first wife is a source for some of his discoveries, goes on to state:

'Uneducated and uninterested in culture and anything spiritual, Mr Corbyn, as a committed communist, was unsympathetic towards a race complicated by its history of survival over 2,000 years of persecution....

[He} defined Zionism as racism and accused white Jews of acting as supremacists, oppressing coloured Arabs in what he called “Israel’s apartheid occupation” of Palestine. He condemned the Balfour Declaration... and dismissed the effect of the Holocaust to explain the Jewish people’s longing for a return to their own country after 1945 to avoid future persecution.

[He] preferred to ignore that Israel was created by the United Nations and fulfilled all the legal requirements for international recognition. Pertinently, he never complained about the simultaneous creation of Pakistan in 1948, where partition of the sub-continent had caused millions of deaths and led to the persecution of Hindus by the new Muslim state.

In Mr Corbyn’s hierarchy of oppression, the descendants of slaves were the most victimised, while Holocaust survivors were at the bottom of the list. He did not distinguish between Jews in London and Zionists in Tel Aviv. To him, they were all guilty.

An original source of Mr Corbyn’s antisemitism in the 1960s ... was Malcolm X ...

Mr Corbyn’s antisemitism simmered unseen, even after he was elected as an MP in 1983, until the Islamist attack on New York on September 11 2001. In the aftermath, he organised with fellow communists the Stop the War Coalition (SWC), ostensibly to protest against the American invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq.

Mr Corbyn’s partner in SWC was the Muslim Association of Great Britain. This group was attached to the Muslim Brotherhood. Some on the left questioned the coalition of Marxists with political Islamists but Mr Corbyn successfully argued that the alliance was forged by a mutual opposition to Zionism.

Thereafter, during protest marches through London, banners against the war would be given equal billing to the Muslim Association’s placards urging the destruction of Israel. The two, said the Muslim organisers, were linked: Zionists were planning the imminent invasion of Iraq. Mr Corbyn agreed.

Thereafter, Mr Corbyn frequently associated with Muslim extremists who advocated in antisemitic language Israel’s destruction. Speaking on the same platforms with the extremists, he appeared to share his hosts’ refusal to distinguish between anti-Zionism and antisemitism...' 

Be sure to read the entire article dissecting Danger Man's antisemitism.  It pulls no punches.

The fact that in his biography of Corbyn Bower by an unfortunate slip refers to "Cat Stevens" when he means "Cat Smith" the female Labour MP, does not validate the disdainful dismissive review of the book undertaken by reviewer Stephen Bush (political editor of the New Statesman) in the Guardian, where the issue of antisemitism is not mentioned by Mr Bush.

More (out of numerous other) examples of Corbynista slime:

MP Chris Williamson:

As others have asked, recalling this, has Williamson no mirror?

There seems to be a great deal of "rich man antisemitism" at the base of Corbynista Jew-hatred, the perception of Jews as plutocrats, the manifestly unfounded belief that all Jews are wealthy.  Still, Corbyn continues to have his as-a-Jew toadies,  They surface every so aften in the correspondence colums of the Guardian ... as well as of the Islington Tribune.

David Singer: Israel jettisons PLO as Negotiating Partner on Trump Peace Plan

Here's the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.

He writes:

Israel’s decision to withhold US$138 million dollars in tax revenues collected for the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) – equalling the estimated annual payments made to Palestinian Arabs (or their families) carrying out random and indiscriminate attacks against Israeli civilians – marks a watershed in Israel-PLO relations.

Israel’s action will see the PLO being finally jettisoned as a possible negotiating partner on President Trump’s long-delayed peace plan – deferred yet again until after the Israeli elections in April.

The release of the Trump plan could now be further postponed as the president continues his so far unsuccessful search to find other Arab negotiators willing to replace the PLO – which had already rejected having anything to do with Trump’s plan well before Israel’s latest decision.

The law authorising the freezing of these PLO funds was passed by the Israeli parliament in July 2018 – three months after similar legislation – the Taylor Force Act – passed by the US Congress – was signed into law by President Trump.

Israel’s Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked stressed the funds withheld would be used to pay “fat salaries to murderers who are in prison”.

They would also be used to pay Palestinian Arabs imprisoned in Israeli jails for lesser crimes.
Israel’s action follows the discovery of the body of 19-year-old Ori Ansbacher in the Jerusalem Forest on 7 February.

Channel 12 news reported that investigators from the Shin Bet security service and Israel Police hoped to indict Arafat Irfaiya, a 29-year-old Hebron resident, for murder in the context of a terrorist act in addition to a charge of rape.

Israel is clearly not prepared to allow this continuing wave of terror to be condoned and rewarded financially by the PLO.

Al Jazeera reported that the PLO took a very different view of Israel’s freeze:

"The Palestinians have accused the Israeli government of piracy, of coordinating this with the United States to add pressure ahead of the publication of the Trump peace plan"

The PLO had,however, been unceremoniously consigned to the diplomatic scrap heap by Trump well before Israel’s tax-revenue freeze. Trump had been given the thumbs down by the PLO after Trump had:

• Recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moving the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem

 • Stopped America’s annual payment of US$350 million to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency

• Shut down the PLO offices in Washington

 • Cancelled more than $200m in aid for the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and West Bank

Chairman Mahmoud Abbas had already dismissed any further involvement with Trump on 5 January 2019:

“We are dealing with three issues that we can not accept: the situation with the US, the situation with Israel and the situation with Hamas. The doors are closed to the US. As long as it does not retract its decisions against the Palestinian people, no Palestinian should meet with the American leadership, no matter what their role is.”

 Paying murderers and felons who kill and maim Jews has finally become the PLO’s political downfall.

Ori Ansbacher’s murder was the final tipping point for Israel to dump the PLO as a future negotiating partner after thousands of well documented random terror attacks on Israel’s civilian population over the last four years – perpetrated by individuals, many very young, inspired by vicious incitement in Palestinian social and traditional media and rewarded financially by the Palestinian leadership.

The days of “pay for slay”and fruitless negotiations with the PLO that have gone nowhere over the last 25 years are over.

Israel has well and truly closed the door on the PLO and it should remain locked and bolted.

Antisemitism, the "Splitters", & a Commons Debate

Following news that seven Labour MPs (and now an eighth, Joan Ryan, who in a devastating indictment of Corbyn has made his failure to deal with antisemitism in the party central to herdefection) have left the party and formed their own Independent Group, "the oldest hatred" rears its ugly Medusa's head.

No surprise to Labour Against Antisemitism, aware as it is of the loathsome sentiments engendered in the party under Corbyn:

See, for instance, the comments that greet this report. (Bonus: a chance to see Gorgeous George!)

Gorgeous George again:

 Young Labour shows its true colours:

Conservative candidate Robert Largan deploring vile comments encouraged by this MP's malice:

And then there's this (hat tip: Jonathan Hoffman in a  Facebook post).  Tim Llewellyn, of course, used to be a BBC correspondent.

And on Twitter via an extreme anti-Israel activist, this:

Interesting tweets regarding the latest developments in Labour ranks from international relations academic Dr James Vaughan:

The Times of London (19 February):

And (hat tip: Jonathan Hoffman) at the instigation of Mrs May's government, in order to embarrass Corbyn, the House of Commons (20 February) will debate [update: has debated] the topic "Antisemitism in modern Society"!

Meanwhile, it's perhaps no surprise to learn that notorious antisemite Alison Chabloz is a keen Corbynista.

Good news from Oz: notorious antisemite and general fruitcake David Icke has been denied entry into the country.

Anti-Israel Bias: Australia's Channel Nine Needs Watching

Viewers of Australia's National Nine News will be familiar with the network's not infrequent tendency to carry stories, in the second half of its bulletins where international reports tend to appear, that are decidedly unfair to Israel.

Such reports habitually inform the viewer that x number of Palestinians has been killed/ wounded in Gaza/the West Bank yesterday/today without presenting Israel's side of the story, and characteristically with no background at all.

That there's someone in Channel Nine's newsroom who's biased against Israel seems a given, and viewers of yesterday's 4 pm bulletin, at least in Melbourne, were treated to a seemingly sinister dose of anti-Israel propaganda.

The report in question concerned the big news of Monday in Oz,  news still in the headlines, namely that there had been a serious malicious cyber attack on the computer network of federal Parliament in Canberra, and that the culprit must be a foreign power.

No sooner was the involvement of a foreign power being aired in Nine's 4 pm Monday bulletin than an Israeli flag flashed up up on the screen, covering the latter's entire left half.

The shocking implication was clear: Israel did it! Mossad's tentacles have reached out to harm Australia!

Afterwards the report (which I've searched in vain for online) proceeded to tell the viewer that only a handful of countries have the technology to launch such a cyber attack, and it listed them (Russia America, Israel, China, but in what order I'm not sure, though I do know that Israel was not first), showing their flags in turn.

But by then the viewer's mind had been affected by the graphic that had first appeared on the screen, implicitly connecting Israel to the attack.

Perhaps the newsroom was inundated with text and phone protests by indignant "Zionists", or perhaps a fair-minded producer had charge of the 6 pm bulletin, for the corresponding report, seemingly identical and certainly very similar, to the 4 pm one, did not start off with an Israeli flag halfway across the screen.  It did show an Israeli flag, but only at the exact spot when Israel was mentioned in the list of countries with the capability of carrying out such a cyber attack, together with images, when appropriate, of the other flags.  Each flag was in the background to the report, not 50 per cent full frontal.

Since the likeliest culprit for the cyber attack is generally agreed to be China, the channel's simultaneous display of an Israeli flag when the cyber attack was mentioned appears to have had a sinister motivation.

Given the channel's tendency to show scant sympathy for Israel in news reports, Nine's news bulletins need watching.  And strongly protested where necessary.

In London, Usual Suspects, Usual Slurs, & Corbynista Slime

On 15 February outside the Puma Store, in accordance with this particular facet of the anti-Israel movement, devotees of the Islamic-led Inminds organisation (including a "Kick Israel Out of FIFA" campaigner of Jewish origin, who's here exchanged her familiar baseball cap and togs in the Palestinian Arab colours for a woollen beanie and winter gear) spew their usual scripted slurs.  (Don't give up the day jobs, duckies!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEnh-VbERmw

(A MrAlexSeymour video)

Meanwhile, Oh, Jeremy Corbyn!

The baiting of Luciana Berger:

 And the Daily Mail describes a new book's lowdown regarding Corbyn:

Nick Cohen on Corbyn