Tuesday, 8 March 2011
‘Young Hoodlums in their Hundreds ... screaming "Yahud, Yahud"’: A British Professor Recalls the Big Tripoli Pogrom of 1945
Here's Professor Segal's account, with no further comment from me:
‘It was 9.30 on Friday morning, a holiday for the Moslem members of my department. But none of the Christian officials had arrived either. There was an ominous silence in the air. I realised suddenly that there was no traffic on the roads. Ill at ease, I brushed aside my correspondence, and went out into the crisp sunshine. I saw that one, then another, and finally a succession of the concrete houses of the New City carried on their walls the freshly painted legend “Italiano.” The message was clear.
If I had not understood I was to be enlightened soon enough. A low growl could be heard from the distance. Suddenly they appeared – young hoodlums in their hundreds, sweeping along the road some ten or fifteen abreast screaming “Yahud, Yahud.”
It was shock, not courage, that made me stand my ground , and, seeing me in uniform, they passed around and beyond me.
Then the looting started, shop windows were smashed, and doors battered down.
I visited the Jewish schools in the ghetto area. There was little panic. The children who lived nearby had been sent home; they had nothing to fear, for the Jewish district was too densely populated to be penetrated by even the most daring of the mob.
The staff, mostly Italian Jews, stood in a little knot, speaking in whispers, making their plans calmly with their leader, a professor from Rome, a small ungainly woman with an aquiline nose and nervous smile. I put some children on my lorry and returned them to their mothers in the New City.
From a remote building I heard moaning. In the bare courtyard, an old Jewish woman in Arab dress sat on the ground, her face streaked with blood, swaying to and fro, keening rhythmically. Some yards away a man lay wrapped in his coat; his head had been battered like the cheap pans beside him. Where had the mob gone? Where had they entered here? It was useless to question the woman; God had given and God had taken away.
The police and the military had been alerted. I drove back to my quarters – to be sickened by the contrast. In the palatial villa of the mess everything appeared normal. The fountain played in the sunshine, deck chairs were set out, as usual under the arches, aperitifs stood on the table. The servants reminded me that the Brigadier had gone on leave to Cairo. And only a few hundred yards away murderers were hunting down their victims.
It was the unsuspecting Jews of the outlying villages who were helpless, and the killings were many – in all, I think, more than 130. We could chart on the map the progress of murder, rape and looting passing from Tripoli across the countryside – east, west and south, like a well-organised contagion. At some points it needed only one or two men to halt the onset – as at Homs where a brave British officer and a Jewish doctor from Alexandria stood at the entrance to the Jewish quarter and threatened to blow out the brains of the first rioter to approach.
Everywhere the bloodshed continued for two days. Jewish refugees were brought to a hastily constructed camp in the capital, I escorted a cortège from Zawiya – one lorry heaped with the bodies of the dead, others with their relatives and friends, some wounded, all dazed and silent, clutching their mean bundles. There was no passion, but submission to the inevitable.
After a couple of weeks, the situation – in the words of the Army authorities – was under control. The Governor had returned to his post at Tripoli. I suppose there was an official inquiry – there usually is. Arab extremists who had been detained after the outbreak of the riots were released. And within a few months (was it by coincidence?) three Jewish officers in the Military Administration had been transferred to duties outside Libya – the Major responsible for the municipality (who had been outstandingly successful in his dealings with Arab officials), a doctor, and myself.
From 1949 the Jewish community of Libya – even the ancient settlement of cave-dwellers at Tarbuna – virtually ceased to exist. Many emigrated to a new life in Israel. Only a handful remained in Tripoli and Benghazi to become the target of anti-Israel malice after the Six-Day War.
The Jews of Libya had never played an important part in the life of their country – they were no more than a pawn in a sinister game of politics. We need not point the finger at the fanatical ignorant Moslem mob. But it should be part of the training of every Foreign Office official and of every responsible journalist to witness at first hand the violence of a rampaging mob – and to learn how fanaticism and violence are manipulated.’
Monday, 7 March 2011
Another Bandsman on the BDS Bandwagon
‘After years of what Waters says was inaction by the Israeli government to "grant civil rights to Israeli Arabs equal to those enjoyed by Israeli Jews" and the extension of the separation barrier "illegally annexing more and more of the West Bank," the musician decided to support "Palestinians in their civil, nonviolent resistance."’Waters pleads "to my colleagues in the music industry, and also to artists in other disciplines, to join this cultural boycott." Read more here: http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=210986
He has form, it seems, having been accused of antisemitism:
http://israelmatzav.blogspot.com/2010/10/adl-accuses-roger-waters-of-anti.html
As reader Roger (obviously not Waters!) comments on the previous post:
“It is painful to behold the absurd comments he makes in this report, revealing his abject historical ignorance. Unfortunately, his politics will influence many young people.”And of course Waters’s stance also points to Israel’s woeful failure adequately to make its case, and also the baneful influence of the one-sidedness of the BBC and much of the media in helping the Arabs win the war for public opinion.
A recent article by Rabbi Michael (Micky) Boyden refutes the “apartheid” canard that has influenced people like Waters to swallow Arab propaganda hook, line, and sinker. Observes Boyden:
‘[u]nder Israeli jurisdiction, for the first time in two thousand years, the holy sites of Jerusalem and, indeed, of all of Israel are open without restriction to those of all religions and of none.
The same could not always be said of the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron. Muslims were not permitted to enter it following its capture by the Crusaders in the year 1100, and, when the Turks and later the Jordanians gained control, Jews were not allowed past the seventh step leading up to the tombs.
The 7th annual Israel Apartheid Week is scheduled to take place around the world at the beginning of March this year. Its organisers describe its purpose as “to educate people about the nature of Israel as an apartheid system and to build Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaigns as part of a growing global BDS movement.”
Those who are familiar with Israel will know that the very notion of the country being an apartheid state is absolute nonsense. There are Arab judges, Arab members of Knesset and Arab consuls. Bedouins serve alongside Jews in the army [have a look at the accompaying video]. Go into our hospitals, where Jewish and Arab medical staff work side by side treating all of Israel’s population without distinction. Arab and Jewish presenters work alongside one another on TV shows. Enter our universities, where lecturers and students come from all strands of society. Visit our banks, our supermarkets and our shopping malls, where Jews and Arabs work and shop side by side.''
However, it was the American psychologist and philosopher, William James, who said: “There’s nothing so absurd that if you repeat it often enough, people will believe it.” We need to be telling the world and those misguided people taking part in Israel Apartheid Week and supporting BDS campaigns that they are being sold a Palestinian propaganda lie, whose intention it is to delegitimize the only fully democratic state in the Middle East. [My emphasis]
Whereas Jews and Arabs live side by side in Israel, Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, has already made it abundantly clear that Jews will not be allowed to reside in a Palestinian State once it is established. Only last summer, he was quoted by the official Palestinian news agency Wafa as having said: “I would not agree to having Jews among the NATO forces, or that even a single Israeli will live among us on Palestinian land.”
Of course, it is true that Arab travellers – and not only Arabs – are subject to particular scrutiny at Israel’s airports. Of course it is true, especially since the Intifada, that most Palestinians are not allowed to enter Israel. Of course, it is true that certain roads on the West Bank are closed to Palestinians. But that is not because of a policy of apartheid, but rather reflects a genuine and justified concern for safety in a country that was already the victim of terrorist attacks long before the assault on the World Trade Center or the murder of innocent commuters on the London underground.
As you drive up the highway towards the holy city of Mecca, the road divides into two. The overhead traffic signs indicate that straight ahead leads to “Mecca (Muslims only)”. The two lanes that lead off to the right are signposted “Riyadh” and are designated as “Obligatory for non Muslims”. So it is in a country where Jews are banned from entry and Christians are forbidden to build churches. But nobody says a word. http://weareforisrael.org/2011/02/16/israel-an-apartheid-state/
Sunday, 6 March 2011
Lib Dem Lords a-Leaping to Kick Israel
The British Liberal Party, which was on the wane and in the political wilderness during the mid-twentieth century, having been eclipsed by Labour, had a friendly (indeed, sometimes very friendly) attitude towards Israel until 1976, when the pro-Arab David Steel became leader.
And today, in its current reincarnation as the Liberal Democrats, the party, a catch-all for radical lefties of various stripes, possesses numerous obsessed Israel-bashers, not only at “grassroots” level but also at Westminster.
On 22 February our old friend (pictured) Baron Phillips of Sudbury – the Lib Dem life peer who declared not so long ago that “America is in the grip of the well-organised Jewish lobby” – chaired a panel discussion at the Senate House, London University, on the theme “The Palestine Papers: Under the Spotlight”. It was organised by Middle East Monitor, and featured a cast of speakers mainly reflecting in various degrees that body’s anti-Israel stance. Thanks to the indefatigable blogger Richard Millett (remember when he was thrown out of the Palace of Westminster by PC Plod? http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/2010/07/its-unfair-cop-guv-mr-plod-shows-some.html) there is a reliable record of the event, although two heavies tried to relieve Mr Millett of his recorder and his camera!
One speaker, Tim Llewellyn – a former BBC Middle East correspondent (just fancy that!) – declared his support for boycotting Israel, whose “government is uncivilised and Israelis who support it take part in that uncivilisation. Israel is a rogue state in the Middle East.”
Another, former CIA political analyst Kathleen Christison, author of Palestine in Pieces, opined that “the only just solution” is the dismantling of the “exclusivist Jewish state” with its “Jewish exclusivist government” in favour of a single binational state. She stated that “The Palestine Papers laid bare the Israel-America relationship in all its obscenity” and observed that it was difficult to raise that subject in the United States for fear of being labelled “antisemitic”.
The latter remark struck a chord with the noble lord, who drew an analogy with McCarthyism and – presumably recalling the storm he had unleashed on that earlier occasion – lamented “We have a bit of that starting here, I’m afraid.”
Summing up, he said:
Another Lib Dem life peer, Baron Dykes of Harrow Weald (pictured), a former leftwing Conservative MP, is now his present party’s spokesperson on Foreign Affairs in the House of Lords. Dykes, like Baroness Tonge and several other high profile members of his party, has a long history of vilifying Israel. He speaks as if Arab rejectionism had never led to the 1967 War and even compares Israel to apartheid South Africa, praises the Goldstone Report, and does not discount the possibility of sanctions. The abhorrent BBC, ever ready to give a helping hand to Israel’s detractors, has a video of him on its website inveighing ponderously against Israel during a Lords debate on 6 April last year(http://news.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/hi/house_of_lords/.../8599435.stm)
In that video he trots out his usual mantra of hate against the Jewish State (which he professes to love!) and singles out the odious Sir Gerald Kaufman (a Jewish parliamentarian who regularly defames Israel, comparing it to Nazi Germany – see some of his nonsense and a photo of him with Arafat here http://homepage.ntlworld.com/ma.rathfelder/kaufman.htm) for special praise.
In the above debate, Dykes claimed that “Israel has so much and the Palestinians so little.” Oh yeah? Does he think all Jews are rich? Does he believe that there is no poverty among Jewish Israelis? I rather suspect he does. Whatever the case, he should have a look at this video:
But I digress. On 28 February, at the instigation of Lord Dykes, the House of Lords held a short debate on the issue “To ask Her Majesty's Government how they will work with the Government of the United States to ensure that Israel complies with United Nations resolutions and international law.”
That’s the same United Nations that’s in thraldom to Israel’s hypocritical foes from the Arab bloc, and which has seen countries with human rights abuses and denials of women’s rights appointed to various UN bodies specialising in those very areas!
Dykes opened the debate thus:
Lord Janner’s speech, however, greatly displeased the most virulently anti-Israel Lib Dem peer of them all, one who has on occasion sailed very close to – correction, into – the wind of antisemitism, another old friend of ours, Baroness Tonge. “I have somewhat had my breath blown away by the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Janner,” she stated.
And today, in its current reincarnation as the Liberal Democrats, the party, a catch-all for radical lefties of various stripes, possesses numerous obsessed Israel-bashers, not only at “grassroots” level but also at Westminster.
One speaker, Tim Llewellyn – a former BBC Middle East correspondent (just fancy that!) – declared his support for boycotting Israel, whose “government is uncivilised and Israelis who support it take part in that uncivilisation. Israel is a rogue state in the Middle East.”
Another, former CIA political analyst Kathleen Christison, author of Palestine in Pieces, opined that “the only just solution” is the dismantling of the “exclusivist Jewish state” with its “Jewish exclusivist government” in favour of a single binational state. She stated that “The Palestine Papers laid bare the Israel-America relationship in all its obscenity” and observed that it was difficult to raise that subject in the United States for fear of being labelled “antisemitic”.
The latter remark struck a chord with the noble lord, who drew an analogy with McCarthyism and – presumably recalling the storm he had unleashed on that earlier occasion – lamented “We have a bit of that starting here, I’m afraid.”
Summing up, he said:
“Everything I hear from the platform speakers makes me think that the world we are now moving into has been turned upside down and that, er, the Jews aren’t lacking in intelligence, they may be deeply prejudiced, many of them, but they are going to be saying the same sort of thing as you on the panel are saying. It seems to me that it is not at all safe to rely on the past to interpret the future and that American, indeed American Jewry, quite apart from the progressive elements within Israel, who have been overshadowed in recent years, all of this could change quickly and rapidly in the face of a Middle East that suddenly becomes hostile.” See http://richardmillett.wordpress.com/2011/02/23/lord-andrew-phillips-of-sudbury-many-jews-may-be-deeply-prejudiced/
In that video he trots out his usual mantra of hate against the Jewish State (which he professes to love!) and singles out the odious Sir Gerald Kaufman (a Jewish parliamentarian who regularly defames Israel, comparing it to Nazi Germany – see some of his nonsense and a photo of him with Arafat here http://homepage.ntlworld.com/ma.rathfelder/kaufman.htm) for special praise.
In the above debate, Dykes claimed that “Israel has so much and the Palestinians so little.” Oh yeah? Does he think all Jews are rich? Does he believe that there is no poverty among Jewish Israelis? I rather suspect he does. Whatever the case, he should have a look at this video:
But I digress. On 28 February, at the instigation of Lord Dykes, the House of Lords held a short debate on the issue “To ask Her Majesty's Government how they will work with the Government of the United States to ensure that Israel complies with United Nations resolutions and international law.”
That’s the same United Nations that’s in thraldom to Israel’s hypocritical foes from the Arab bloc, and which has seen countries with human rights abuses and denials of women’s rights appointed to various UN bodies specialising in those very areas!
Dykes opened the debate thus:
“Over the weekend it was good to see for once – unusually, and I suppose sadly – the unanimous decisions of the UN Security Council calling on Colonel Gaddafi to account for the abominable behaviour that he is wreaking on his own people. In contrast, how depressing it was to see ... the previous weekend's United Nations Security Council session being ruined, even recklessly sabotaged, by another US veto concerning the Israel/Palestine issue....
Once again the Arab street sees the double standards of the US. Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait and was quite rightly expelled after a year. The UN, quite rightly, did not hesitate then. Israel invaded the West Bank 44 years ago, but it is still there. I warmly congratulate the UK Government as well as the EU on their much more decisive stand in contrast to the still lingering, miserable and self-inflicted humiliation which is further eroding America's already tattered so-called leadership of the western world.”You can read the full debate here http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201011/ldhansrd/text/110228-0002.htm#11022845000189 but perhaps the finest riposte to the Israel-bashers came from the (Jewish) Labour life peer (and former MP) Baron Janner of Braunstone (with whom, he being on the opposite side of politics, I don’t always agree):
“My Lords, does this House recognise that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East? Democracies, like Israel or this country, do not always elect the Governments whom we would vote for. However, in my view, Israel continues to play an important role in the international community. It represents a bridge between Europe and the Middle East. It represents democracy, liberty and freedom in a region that has long been filled with tyrannies and dictatorships. We have all seen the people's aspirations, which have long been suppressed, now released in recent revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain and now Libya, which we should welcome.
We should recognise the fact that the only democracy in that area is the country that Members of this House have been attacking so readily this evening. The instability of the region has always been a major problem for Israel. However, the current revolutions in the Middle East present an opportunity for Israel and the world.
The primary role of a nation state is to defend its borders and citizens from attack. Israel faces a tough task. Its duty is to defend its citizens. Hamas is not a Government and Gaza is not a nation state. Hamas has been praised. However, Hamas is a terrorist group, which rains terrors on civilians in Israel. These terrorists ignore international law and they, not Israel, should be the key focus of this debate. Let me make it clear to this House: Israel does not target citizens, unlike Hamas and Hezbollah, which target citizens in many parts of Israel. Mistakes occur in warfare, just as mistakes have occurred in Afghanistan and Iraq. When these mistakes happen, investigations are launched and, where possible, justice is delivered.
I would have been interested to hear how the noble Lord who triggered this debate would himself have responded if we in this nation suffered from attacks from terrorist entities, which is the position that Israel has to face. Many of these terrorists were funded and armed by an Iranian regime dedicated to the destruction of Israel and to attacks on Jewish people around the world. The true question for this House is who the real abusers of international law are: Israel, which defends its citizens, or the terrorists who target them.”
“The international community is outraged by the behavior of Colonel Gaddafi towards his people in Libya and has rightly condemned his actions, which have violated human rights and international law. The reaction from our leaders has been swift and decisive. Sanctions are being imposed and bank accounts frozen-quite right too. Any Government who behave in this way should receive the same response. Why, then, has the Government of Israel, who defy all international law, never been called to account by the international community and, why, just last week-as we have heard from other noble peers – did the USA veto the UN resolution on settlements after calling for a freeze on those settlements just a few months ago? Why has this happened when the behaviour of Israel towards the Palestinians lies at the very root of the problems in the Arab-Muslim world?”Clearly, where Jews and Israel are concerned, Lady Tonge is incorrigible. See also http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/2010/11/its-time-for-nick-clegg-to-scrape-this.html and http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/2010/11/down-and-dirty-at-westminster-with.html
Saturday, 5 March 2011
What Next for Egypt? (video)
Brought to you by the BBC College of Journalism (CoJo), and including a discussion of the influence of Iran, the Muslim Brotherhood, and the impact on Israel:
Friday, 4 March 2011
None So Blind As Those Who Won't See
 |
| Courtesy: Edgar Davidson blog (see text) |
On its execrably left-leaning CoJo (College of Journalism) website – which I advise all concerned about Al Beeb’s anti-Western, anti-Israel bias to keep an eye on regularly – it carries, for example, a piece by a suitably tame Israeli about the brutal attack on CBS reporter Lara Logan by a Muslim mob in Cairo, a piece which omits the rather salient fact that the mob yelled “Jew! Jew!” and focuses instead on the “ugly media reactions” in the West that display male chauvinism towards working women in conflict zones and Islamophobia.
Here’s a snippet:
‘Debbie Schlussel, the ultra-conservative columnist and commentator, claimed in her blog:
"Lara Logan was among the chief cheerleaders of this 'revolution' by animals. Now she knows what Islamic revolution is really all about."
She added:
"So sad, too bad, Lara. No-one told her to go there. She knew the risks. And she should have known what Islam is all about. Now she knows ... How fitting that Lara Logan was 'liberated' by Muslims in Liberation Square while she was gushing over the other part of the 'liberation'."For Al Beeb that kind of talk won’t do at all.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/journalism/blog/2011/02/february-11th-the-day-egypts.shtml
 |
| Courtesy: Edgar Davidson blog (see text) |
And, as I’ve said more than once, neither will any suggestion that the Muslim Brotherhood, is in fact (despite the blatherings of Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen and his acolytes) a dangerous Jihadist organisation.
All of which brings me to Professor Barry Rubin’s post on his blog entitled “Muslim Brotherhood's New Campaign: Seize Control of Egypt's Islamic Institutions”.
He writes:
‘MEMRI has pointed out the opening of a Muslim Brotherhood campaign to replace Egypt's current clerical hierarchy with its own people. If that happens...you can imagine.. Once Islamists are in place making the "official" decisions on what constitutes proper Islam, an Islamist state cannot be far away.
.... Knowing that control over Islam was vital to maintaining control of the country, the Egyptian regime (like nationalist regimes elsewhere) set out to build a systematic structure for doing so. The head of the al-Azhar Islamic university, the chief qadi, the clerics of different mosques, are government-appointed. Sermons are government-approved. A ministry in charge of awqaf (religious foundations) and religion supervises all of this and hands out the money. And the government also decides which clerics appear on television and radio, or even have their own programs.
Over the last decade or so, the "official" clerics have been radicalized, and they support terrorism against Israel. Yet there is still a huge gap between those who accepted the rule by Mubarak's regime and those who demand an Islamist regime. They hate the Brotherhood and the Brotherhood hates them.
Now, if all of these official clerics are declared to be corrupt instruments of the old regime and are thrown out of office, the Brotherhood will control "Islam" in Egypt. Equally important, they will control a vast amount of patronage and money. Every cleric will have to get along with them or be unemployed. They could authorize which mosques could open. They would control religious education.
If the Brotherhood is a participant in government, even as a junior member of a coalition, its highest priority will be the religious affairs ministry. To call this dangerous is an understatement.
So we should watch carefully this battle over who governs Islam in Egypt.
To save you a click, here is what Muhammad Zoghbi of the Brotherhood says:
"Al-Azhar was subjected to...the politicization of the positions of the sheikh of Al-Azhar and the mufti of Egypt, as well as the position of the minister of religious endowments. These positions must be filled through elections. By no means should these officials be appointed by the president....
Therefore I say to the 'sons' of Al-Azhar: Let us all join the campaign, led by Sheik Khaled Al-Gindi, until we liberate Al-Azhar, just like Egypt was liberated....The president of Egypt must be subordinate to Al-Azhar and respect it....
Therefore, I say to the sheikh of Al-Azhar...resign immediately.... The mufti and the minister of religious endowments should step down, leaving their positions to God-fearing imams...."
"God-fearing" imams means Muslim Brotherhood cadre. The president of Egypt "must be subordinate" to al-Azhar means an Islamist state. This strategy also suggests that the Brotherhood is recognizing that it will not choose Egypt's next president – who is more likely to be the nationalist Amr Moussa – so it must start building an independent base of support outside of the government's and president's control for its long march toward Islamism at a later date.'Barry Rubin, in another post entitled “The Turkish Camouflage Model: Arab Radicals Learn How to Hide Your Islamism,” draws attention to a pertinent passage from Newsweek magazine (http://www.newsweek.com/2011/02/27/an-islamist-makeover.html)
“As revolutions across the Mideast bring religious parties within sight of real political power, Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is becoming the region’s go-to man for Islamist leaders looking for a makeover.”Adds the professor:
“In other words, be an Islamist but pretend you aren't. The fact that Erdogan is an ally of Iran, Syria, Hamas, and Hizballah is not a good sign for those who follow what might be better called the Turkish Camouflage-Your-Extremism Model.”http://rubinreports.blogspot.com/2011/03/muslim-brotherhoods-new-campaign-seize.html
http://rubinreports.blogspot.com/2011/03/turkish-camouflage-model-arab-radicals.html
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