Good Deeds Day At Jerusalem Hospital (video)

Here's something uplifting to start the week (though it acually took place earlier this month on international Good Deeds Day, an initiative that originated in Israel).

To quote the YouTube uploader:

'Forty students from the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance took a classical approach to the flashmob as they flashwaltzed Tchaikovsky's Waltz of the Flowers at the new Sarah Wetsman Davidson Hospital Tower in Jerusalem. Doctors, patients and passers-by joined in the fun.

The surprise concert was part of Good Deeds Day, an annual event that originated in Israel in 2007 and now takes place in over 50 countries worldwide. On this day volunteers reach out to the less fortunate and the vulnerable.

The Academy students enjoyed the day so much that they have decided to schedule regular concerts at the hospital. Hadassah Medical Organization treats over one million patients annually, without regard to race, religion or national origin.'

"Joining In The Popular Kicking Of Israel Is Not a Sign Of Moral Courage"

" Israel is Australia's friend and ally. The Labor Party used to know this and care about it. Joining in the popular kicking of Israel is not a sign of moral courage, though it will win plaudits from the usual suspects at the UN and in conventional international relations think tanks.

But it is an immoral position that betrays fundamental political, moral and ethical values that Labor used to understand pretty well."

So writes Greg Sheridan, foreign editor of The Australian, who's long been a staunch supporter of Israel,  in his column of 9 March, which argues that the Zygier affair "brings to the fore the strange pathologies in Australian opinion concerning Israel. It also underlines how badly the Labor government has gone off course in its conception of Israel, and Israel's place in the world" and claims that former Minister for Foreign Affair Kevin Rudd and current incumbent of that post Bob Carr are responsible, along with the still baneful influence of an earlier holder of the office, Gareth Evans, and the mindset that believes,with ex-President Jimmy Carter, that

"The heart and mind of every Muslim is affected by whether or not the Israel-Palestine issue is dealt with."

Observes Sheridan:

'Last year in a cabinet revolt, Julia Gillard was overridden on a key UN vote. Australia was set to vote no to elevating the status of the Palestinian Authority to an observer state at the UN. Carr and Rudd opposed Gillard's position (though Rudd was not a player in this vote). Under the baleful influence of [then Minister for Foreign Affairs] Gareth Evans, a tremendously negative force on contemporary Labor foreign policy who offers only a bureaucratic version of conventional wisdom (and conventional wisdom is often wrong), Canberra changed its vote and abstained.

In its own terms, this was a very bad move. There will never be a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute until both sides compromise over an agreement. This UN move, along with many tens of millions of dollars of increased Australian aid to the Palestinians, gives them something for nothing. It helps convince the Palestinian leadership that the way to success doesn't involve compromise and negotiation. Instead the international community will do their job for them. It is a destructive syndrome.

Then, in the Australia-UK Ministerial Meeting in January, Carr ratcheted up Australia's rhetoric on Israel. For the first time, his office briefed journalists, Canberra was describing all Israeli settlements in the West Bank as illegal. Also, we were calling on President Barack Obama to lead a new peace effort on the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.

To simply call all Israeli settlements illegal is simplistic, reductionist, almost childish. It jumbles together in one category Jewish suburbs of East Jerusalem, large settlement blocks envisaged under every serious negotiation as staying with Israel, and those settlements illegal under Israeli law. It fails to recognise that there has been no physical expansion of settlement territory since 2004, that settlements occupy less than 3 per cent of the West Bank, that any settlement territory kept by Israel will be matched by land given to a Palestinian state from Israel proper and that settlements have never before been an obstacle to negotiations. Australia's position is also wrong in international law. Jordan, which formerly controlled the territory, is not the sovereign power and UN Security Council resolutions require a negotiated outcome.

But why take this position at all, except to kick sand in the Israelis' eyes? China claims all of the South China Sea almost right up to the Philippines shore, yet Canberra maintains a strict neutrality. If Israel is a friend, why the gratuitous aggro?' [Emphasis added here and below]

Sheridan points to the current unrest in countries bordering Israel, and how that renders demands that Israel urgently seeks peae with the Palestinians unfair and unrealistic:

'At the moment, Syria does not exist as a nation ... its army has abandoned the border regions with Israel. Egypt is in terrible internal turmoil. Its army has effectively lost control of the vast Sinai area that borders Israel. No one can know what its future government will be like. And that's only the tip of the iceberg. The Palestinian leadership is murderously divided between the West Bank and Gaza. Surely it is intellectually fraudulent to imagine that any Israeli government could make a comprehensive peace in this context.

Underlying this is the cardinal doctrine of conventional wisdom among Guardian readers, UN habitues, European think tank staff and the like, and that is the implausible notion Israel is at the heart of Middle East disputes and the West's troubles with Islam....

Just because an idea is widely uttered at the UN doesn't mean it embodies any reality...."

The entire article is available here

"'Jew' Equals Evil" (video)

Here's a video that's airing on several blogs.  It shows youths of Turkish origin in the Netherlands expressing genocidal antisemitism.

I wonder what the myopic Aussie Jewish leaders who were so quick to denounce Geert Wilders and dismiss his warnings make of this!

"Professional East Europian [sic] Murderers": Salim Says, Sizer Says

I'm grateful to reader P. for sending me the following screenshots of a conversation on Facebook below a post made by Stephen Sizer, the vicar of Virginia Water whom many regard as an antisemite (a claim Sizer vigorously denies), and an Oslo-based anti-Israel Facebook friend of Sizer's named Salim Nazzal (who's worth a google).

The conversation follows Stephen Sizer's posted link to former diplomat Craig Murray's blog regarding Sir Vincent Fean, the British consul-general who was received inhospitably recently by students at Bir-Zeit University, and British Ambassador to Israel Matthew Gould, who is Jewish.

In a blog that has attracted the usual share of anti-Israel comments, Murray writes:

"The physical hassling of Vince Fean by Palestinian student activists is a mistake. Vince is not only an extremely decent man, but his private views are of horror at the occupation, and as Consul-General he refuses to deal with the Israelis in the West Bank.

Anger at William Hague is perfectly understandable, I feel it myself. As is anger at Matthew Gould’s repeated and uncalled for declarations of commitment to zionism. But I urge all Palestinians not to attack Vince; he is doing his best and on your side."

However, it's not those comments that concern me here, but rather what Stephen Sizer replies on Facebook to Salim Nazzal's offensive (nay, antisemitic) remark describing the Jews of Eretz Israel as "professional east europian murderers".

I realise that one of Sizer's fixations is having Britain apologize for the Balfour Declaration (he's initiated the Balfour Project to that end) but in view of his disavowal of the antisemitism tag I'm surprised that, rather than scolding Nazzal for his intemperate remark or distancing himself from it, he gives the impression of concurring with it:

"The Jewish People Know The Cost Of Being Defenceless Against Those Who Would Exterminate Us" (video)

"We shall never let it happen again!"

Anticipating his forthcoming meeting with President Obama, scheduled for later this month, Bibi Netanyahu (addressing the AIPAC Conference in Washington via video link) tells it like it is regarding Iran and the Bomb.

And regarding terror groups and the acquisition of deadly weapons from, for instance, Syria's stockpile.

As well as the need for peace with the Palestinians to be "grounded in reality ... and security".

Meanwhile, Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird has delivered a gung-ho speech to AIPAC (report here)

Apartheid 101 (videos)

Such animations may not be everyone's cup of tea, but they're undeniably well-intentioned:

Meanwhile, this kind of thing (which demonstrates why Irish4Israel, the subject of my last post but one, is to be welomed and supported) has been in full swing around the Israel-demonising world:

In for a penny, in for a pound, as the saying goes, so while "in" the Emerald Isle let's see what our loquacious old "friend" with the lean and hungry look has been up to lately.  Ah, 'tis more of the same, so it is!

(Drat! I had great expectations of that pigeon in the opening shot ...)

At UNSW, Will The Chocolatier Conquer Campus?

An article in University of New South Wales student newspaper Tharunka,  with the heading "Hot Chocolate and War Crimes," reports that a Max Brenner franchise will in all likelihood soon be opening on campus:

"[T]he move to allow a Max Brenner store on campus comes after the chocolate shop was identified in the top three food and beverage outlet suggestions by students and staff in the 2011 Retail Survey conducted by UNSW.

The survey was completed by nearly 7000 students and staff, the most successful participation rate of any survey conducted by UNSW," the report notes.

However, the usual suspects are predictably unhappy:

'The probable opening of a Max Brenner chocolate store at UNSW this year has prompted concerned students to question the decision to allow on campus a corporation affiliated with elements of the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF), who are accused of war crimes against the Palestinian people.

Acting President of Students for Justice in Palestine UNSW, Ali Hosseini, told Tharunka that he was disappointed that a respected academic institution such as the university would “stoop so low as to do business with Max Brenner”, demanding the university withdraw from working with the company....

 UNSW student Bec Hynek, member of the Palestine Action Group Sydney and Jews Against the Occupation, said Australian university students have a history of protesting global concerns.

“Students have often been at the forefront of being opposed to apartheid in South Africa and being involved in anti-war movements. It’s students especially who have a stake in not accepting [Max Brenner] on our campus.”

 Notorious anti-Israel campaigner Antony Loewenstein told the newspaper, inter alia:

"I would say to university management that if you open a Max Brenner on campus, you are guaranteeing legitimate peaceful protest against that shop. And if that’s the kind of attraction you want to have at the university, then go right ahead."

Noam Chomsky got in his ten cents' worth.

However:

'SRC Ethnic Affairs Officer, Charlotte Lewis, expressed scepticism at the likelihood of a BDS campaign against Max Brenner succeeding at UNSW.

“As university students in Sydney, I feel we should be focussing more on university life and life in Australia, rather than protesting things that are really beyond anyone’s control in Australia,” she said. “However, it’s good to protest if students want to get their voices heard.” ....'

And Sabina Baunin, President of the Australasian Union of Jewish Students UNSW, observed: 

“I think members of the UNSW community at large might be a bit disappointed if fringe groups turn this into something political, when the students really just want to enjoy some incredible chocolate.”

 Read the entire report here

While we're on the subject of the famed chocolatier, below, against the background of a typically noisy and noisome protest against Max Brenner, this one by Boston University students on Valentine's Day, two earnest young men, one strongly pro-Israel, discuss the protest and the issue of political activism in general.