In London, Zionist Footie Fans Kick Apartheid Balls (video)

A few familiar faces here, and not only on the anti-Israel side.  I think I noticed a prominent pro-Israel blogger around 3:41.  Great to see the Israel supporters challenging the usual suspects.

Video by the incorrigibly anti-Israel Alex Seymour/Seymour Alexander, whose sentiments are expressed thus:

"Damp evening at Stamford Bridge demonstrating against Israel's apartheid in sport, its racist administrators and supporters and their continued harassment of Palestinian players, teams and fixtures. Maccabi Tel-Aviv should have stayed at home; it wasn't worth their coming, Chelsea beat their useless amateur looking gang 4:0 (this with Chelsea so off-form, it has hardly won a match this year)"

(Thanks for the video, though, Mr Seymour!)

Meanwhile, miles away ... 

ABC, BBC, Both Biased On Asylum

I've been catching up with the most recent posts on one of the websites I most admire, the rhetorically-titled Is the BBC Biased?, and note the number of times the authors have had reason to draw our attention to the outrageous leftist propaganda that the BBC, despite its obligations to be objective, in reporting, is pushing regarding the current migration crisis facing Europe.

See this, for example, and this, and this

No wonder this video (featuring exasperated Britons, fearful and furious at what now seems like a Third World invasion of their Continent and existential threat to its way of life) berating the egregious BBC radio host Stephen Nolan, has gone viral; all Nolan could do in response was to insult them, thus underlining what one of them calls the "guilt trip" foisted on the public by such types as he:

Typifying the biased agenda foisted onto the public by the British national broadcaster are the reports by funereal-toned Fergal Keane that feature on the BBC's website, in which contempt for European civilisation and the Europeans who wish to preserve it is not far from the surface.  It's the same leftist mindset that regards everything the British Empire ever achieved as inherently evil.

A mindset that believes that the "victims" of "imperialism" are entitled to grab whatever they can:

This week, in a typically sharp and robust piece, Australian conservative columnist Andrew Bolt complained that the ABC's Paul Barry has twisted and traduced what Bolt wrote here:

"I argued that the tragic picture of drowned toddler Aylan Kurdi did not show what most of the media claimed - a refugee fleeing death in Syria. 

The picture was more complicated, I said. The boy’s family had actually lived in Turkey in safety for three years, and a key part of the father’s decision to go to Europe was to have his teeth fixed. 

Paul Barry of [the ABC's] Media Watch is angry with this dissent, and last night tried to dismiss it in ways I think are deeply misleading"

But it's not only Paul Barry who has taken pot shots at Bolt.  It would appear that the woman dubbed "La Trioli" has made a (subtle) dig at Bolt too.

Although ABC reporters and presenters are obligated, like their BBC counterparts, to be objective, this obligation is honoured more in the breach than in the observance.  Virginia Trioli, the very handsomely paid co-host of ABC News Breakfast and ABC News 24, has a weekly column in a publication called The Weekly Review, which is delivered free to mailboxes.

I don't know whether Ms Trioli's column is similarly gratis but I do know that she's free with her views, as befits a column titled "Mouthing Off".  In the current issue of the giveaway paper she  "seeks understanding" for "asylum seekers" (yes, for the ABC all of the seething mass of Third World humanity desperate to enter the West are, it seems, genuine "asylum seekers") by those who dismiss them as "economoc migrants".

The half-Italian Ms Trioli writes, inter alia:

"The story - and the distortions of that story - of the father of little Aylan Kurdi is instructive.... 

The journey of the contemporary asylum seeker is challenging to us because it does not take a straight line from, say, napalmed village in Vietnam to refugee boats to the Australian shore.  This route travels through countries of equally little hope - economically, socially - in search of a future.  It's similar to the journey my grandfather made before the outbreak of World War II.  First to America, then to Australia and then calling for his little family and first son to take a boat and join him...." 

As for the oft-made analogy between the plight of European Jewry in the 1930s and the situation of today's migratory Muslims, blogger Edgar Davidson has a graphic comment:

 (See more here)

A thought-provoking piece here

Update: Compare and contrast:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34272248

Meanwhile:

Jews, Muslims, & Aussie PM Turnbull

Ms Bishop keeps her Front Bench jobs under Turnbull

I've just got my internet connection up and running again, and as I suspected, the "maybe" Jewish status of the man sworn in today as Australia's 29th prime minister, following his successful (many will add "lamentable") coup last night against the previous incumbent, the more genuinely conservative Tony Abbott, is circulating again.

Thus we learn, from the Times of Israel, citing an interview Turnbull gave to the Australian Jewish News a couple of years ago, that Turnbull's mother may have been Jewish, and if she was, then so is he (halachically) but she was very vague about  the matter, and so therefore is he.

To quote the latter newspaper in 2013:

'....“My mother always used to say that her mother’s family was Jewish,” the member for Wentworth said....

Asked if his mother’s revelation has shaped his views he said: “Yes, maybe.”

 “I grew up in the Eastern Suburbs and as we all observe there were a lot of Jews in the Eastern Suburbs and I have always been very comfortable.

“There is no doubt that the strong traditions of family and the whole heimishe atmosphere of the Jewish community, which I’m sure some people don’t like, for me – as someone who is a good friend, but not part of it – I find very admirable.”

Reflecting on his mother, he noted, “She had a lot of Jewish friends in Sydney and a lot of Jewish friends in Philadelphia, where she was living when she died.”....'

Well, that can't do Mr Turnbull (who, by the way, is a convert from Presbyterianism to Catholicism yet at odds with Catholicism on several social issues) any harm with Jewish voters, although I've always wondered why another Liberal politician, former Victorian premier Jeff Kennett, an Abbott loyalist who yesterday denounced Turnbull as the Liberal Party's Kevin Rudd (a reference to the Rudd-Gillard backstabbing episode in the Labour Party), never big-noted his own undoubted Jewish ancestry.  Indeed, he seems to have kept it snugly under wraps.

Then, again, we're entitled to roll our eyes and say "So what?" when confronted with a politician who just happens to have a Jewish parent or forebear.  I mean, look at the British Labour Party's former leader, "Red Ed" Miliband.  His Jewish parentage didn't make him especially sympathetic to Israel, did it?   And David Cameron's two Jewish great-grandparents, or Jack Straw's one?  True, Malcolm Fraser had a mother with a Jewish father, and Bob Hawke had a (first) wife with a mother of Jewish extraction, and both Fraser and Hawke were friendly to the cause of Soviet Jewry, and to Israel too, though not for the long haul.

I think you get my drift.

But since the Jewish press is always interested in such things (except in Kennett's case, curiously), let's throw it a small morsel of genuine Turnbullian Judaica.  Of sorts.

Mr Turnbull's mother, the noted academic Coral Lansbury, and her cousin, the noted actress Angela Lansbury, had a distinguished grandfather in the person of George Lansbury, interwar leader of the British Labour Party.

And George Lansbury's son Edgar (whose second wife was Angela Lansbury's mother) had a Jewish first wife called Minnie, the daughter of coal merchant Isaac Glassman.    She was a rather remarkable young woman.

Here is how she's described on Wikipedia:

'Minnie Lansbury (1889-1 January 1922) was a leading suffragette and an alderman on the first Labour-led council in the Metropolitan Borough of Poplar, England.

Minnie was the daughter of Jewish coal merchant Isaac Glassman and the first wife (married 1914) of Edgar Lansbury, son of George Lansbury, mayor of Poplar and later leader of the Labour Party. (After Minnie's death, Edgar married actress Moyna Macgill and became the father of Angela Lansbury.)

Minnie Lansbury became a teacher, and joined the east London suffragettes in 1915. She was also chairman of the War Pensions Committee, fighting for the rights of widows, orphans and wounded from World War I. She was elected alderman on Poplar’s first Labour council in 1919, before women received Parliamentary suffrage.

In 1921, she was one of five women on Poplar Council who, along with their male colleagues, were jailed for six weeks for refusing to levy full rates in the poverty-stricken area. Due to her imprisonment, she developed pneumonia and died in 1922. She was buried in the Jewish cemetery in East Ham.

There is a Minnie Lansbury Memorial Clock on Electric House in Bow Road, Tower Hamlets that was erected in the 1930s. The Memorial Clock was restored in 2008 and re-fitted on Electric House. The clock was restored through a public appeal organised by the Jewish East End Celebration Society and the Heritage of London Trust. From the appeal the Heritage of London Trust raised over £13,000, which was given to Tower Hamlets Council to complete the restoration. Angela Lansbury was among those who made a donation towards the restoration of the clock. The restored clock, now painted green and gold, was officially unveiled in the presence of relatives of Minnie Lansbury and local people on Thursday, October 16, 2008.' 

Meanwhile:

'Muslim leaders have called on Malcolm Turnbull to bring an end to the politics of blame they believe impacted their communities under the prime ministership of Tony Abbott.

Keysar Trad, spokesman for the Islamic Friendship Association of Australia, says he is hopeful Mr Turnbull will serve the interests of all Australians. “Certainly the last period of the Abbott government saw more brazen attitudes from groups like Reclaim Australia and attacks on Islam, the Senate inquiry into halal certification; all these things that were very, very divisive in Australian society and seemed to find their nurturing grounds in the last few months of the Abbott government,” Mr Trad said.

Mr Trad said he would write to Mr Turnbull in the coming days to congratulate him and to also seek a dialogue. “Malcolm Turnbull does come across as progressive and as pragmatic, and let’s just hope that within this pragmatism there’s a good appreciation for a diverse nation,” Mr Trad said. “Our diversity is part our tremendous wealth, it’s part of our richness, and let’s hope he can nurture that positively.” Mr Trad said he had been contacted by Muslims “expressing a sense of relief that we may have a chance now of moving forward and moving away from the politics of blame”.

“We hope Australia will go in a direction that serves the interests of all Australians, a direction that will unite us as a nation and make us more cohesive, a direction that exhibits respect for difference in attitudes and difference in cultures that allows us use our differences for the benefit of Australia, rather than making us feel that we have to be defensive about our differences.” Muslim leaders have previously shown sensitivity towards comments on their communities

Muslim leaders have called on Malcolm Turnbull to bring an end to the politics of blame they believe impacted their communities under the prime ministership of Tony Abbott.'

 Update: AIJAC re Turnbull here

Europe Deluded?

Bad news for the undeluded

I'm still awaiting my new internet provider to connect me, which should be next week, but zipping quickly around the internet courtesy of a friend's Wifi I note the following thought-provoking items regarding the current refugee crisis.

The inestimable Douglas Murray:

"I have just returned from a trip abroad to find Britain and Europe in a state of madness. I will not reflect on any connections between these events. But perhaps a reader could enlighten me as to why in recent days Britain and Europe appear to have decided that Syria’s refugees are entirely ‘our’ responsibility....  

Neither this country nor any of our European allies have made any significant intervention in Syria’s civil war. So why should Hungarians and Slovakians, Austrians and Poles be expected to bear such a significant responsibility for this?

Whenever Britain or America or Israel do have any involvement in any Islamic country we hear a very great deal about the ‘Ummah’. The OIC and the Arab League, for instance, never miss an opportunity to talk about the brotherhood and unity of the Islamic nation and how much any ‘hurt’ or offence to any part of this entity hurts and offends the whole...."

Read it all here

 A rather alarming piece from the German magazine Spiegel:

"The average refugee coming from Syria, is under the age of 30, and male. Genders play an underestimated role. Where are all the mothers and daughters from the crisis regions?

Do you still have the pictures in your head? The masses of refugees at the train stations of Budapest and Vienna, the asylum seekers laying on narrow cots in tent cities, the worn down survivors sitting on mediterranean beaches in Europe: Fathers, sons and brothers on almost every picture. A few brought their families along, but most of them came alone.

Female refugees on the other hand: a rarity. As if there were no females suffering and distressed, as if the civil wars in Syria and Eritrea were a purely male matter. Why are mostly men traveling through the Balkan and over the mediterranean? Where are the women from the crisis regions?

The crisis in Europe looks like a mass stampede of young men: alone last year, 2014, two-thirds of asylum seekers in Germany were males, and more than 70% of them were under the age of 30. Europe wide the statistics look pretty much the same, and in the group of 14 to 34-year-old refugees, even three-quarters of them were male...."

Read more in English here
The original German here

Another ripping article from Australia's popular columnist Andrew Bolt, the man the Left loves to hate, concerning the refugee issue, in which he draws attention to a number of crucially salient points deliberately ignored by most of the mainstream media:

".... Europe is paying the price for its weakness — and that of the US. They refused to intervene when jihadist and other groups started to attack Syria’s Assad regime, triggering the refugee exodus. Now Europe won’t defend its borders.

Europe has struggled to assimilate large Muslim populations in France, Sweden, Germany and elsewhere. Illegal immigration of 4000 people a day — mainly Muslim and young — represents an existential threat."

Read Bolt's characteristic humdinger here

A quarter of an hour's worth of Geert Wilders here:

Meanwhile, consider the double standards so starkly described:

'While European countries are being lectured about their failure to take in enough refugees, Saudi Arabia – which has taken in precisely zero migrants – has 100,000 air conditioned tents that can house over 3 million people sitting empty.

The sprawling network of high quality tents are located in the city of Mina, spreading across a 20 square km valley, and are only used for 5 days of the year by Hajj pilgrims. As the website Amusing Planet reports, “For the rest of the year, Mina remains pretty much deserted.”....

While Europe is being burdened by potentially millions of people who don’t share the same culture or religion as the host population, Gulf Arab states refuse to pull their weight, resolving only to throw money at the problem.'

Read the rest here

Obama and Kerry Must Stop Playing Games Affecting Israel’s Future, warns David Singer

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

He writes:

Attempting to secure the Congressional vote required to confirm President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran has necessitated Secretary for State John Kerry pledging Obama’s “rock solid” diplomatic support and increased military assistance for Israel – the bitterest opponent of Obama’s Iranian proposal. Speaking at the National Constitution Center on 2 September, Kerry said:

"And diplomatically, our support for Israel also remains rock solid as we continue to oppose every effort to delegitimize the Jewish state, or to pass biased resolutions against it in international bodies."

Kerry continued: 

"I take a back seat to no one in my commitment to the security of Israel, a commitment I demonstrated through my 28-plus years in the Senate. And as Secretary of State, I am fully conscious of the existential nature of the choice Israel must make…"

If Kerry is to be seriously believed then he must reassure Congress – irrespective of its vote on Iran – that the commitments made to Israel by President Bush in his letter dated 14 April 2004 supporting Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza will be scrupulously adhered to by the current Obama administration.

Kerry unequivocally supported those Presidential commitments when interviewed by Tim Russert on Meet the Press on 18 April 2004:

RUSSERT: On Thursday, President Bush broke with the tradition and policy of six predecessors when he said that Israel can keep part of the land seized in the 1967 Middle East War and asserted the Palestinian refugees cannot go back to their particular homes. Do you support President Bush?

KERRY: Yes.

RUSSERT: Completely?

KERRY: Yes.

Those commitments included:

1. Preventing any attempt to impose any plan other than President Bush’s Roadmap envisioned by him on 24 June 2002.

2. Being strongly committed to Israel’s security and well-being as a Jewish state.

3. Understanding that an agreed, just, fair and realistic framework for a solution to the Palestinian refugee issue as part of any final status agreement would need to be found through the establishment of a Palestinian state, and the settling of Palestinian refugees there, rather than in Israel.

4. Accepting as part of a final peace settlement that Israel must have secure and recognized borders, which should emerge from negotiations between the parties in accordance with UNSC Resolutions 242 and 338.

5. Acknowledging that in light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli populations centers, it would be unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations would be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949.

Bush’s commitments were overwhelmingly endorsed by the House of Representatives 407:9 on 23 June 2004 and the Senate 95:3 the next day (“the Bush/Congress Commitments”).

Obama attempted to water down these commitments in 2011 by suggesting possible Israeli land swaps be made for any territory Israel acquired in the West Bank.

Kerry piggybacked Obama in 2013, inducing Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to resume negotiations with Israel with this letter:

 "Dear Mr. President

In response to your question regarding our position on the issue of borders, this letter is to confirm that the position set forth by President Obama in his May 2011 speeches, that Palestine’s borders with Israel should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, still represents our position. As negotiations begin, I reiterate our commitment to this position. As you confirmed, this letter is and will remain private and confidential between you and me.”

Playing such furtive games with Abbas contrary to the Bush/Congress Commitments is now surely over, following Kerry’s statement. Those commitments are set in concrete – binding all American administrations including Obama’s.