Modernists versus Medievalists: Bibi on Countering the Iranian Menace

While the Israel-haters twist and shout with venomous bile (see my two previous posts) Israel's great communicator has been doing his utmost to win friends and influencing people.  Here's Bibi talking to director Dr Robin Niblett at Chatham House (Royal Institute of International Affairs) during his visit to London in connection with the Balfour Declaration's centenary (a very long video, which also alludes to that Declaration):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wo1PtZaxayo

Meeting British Jewish leaders (an all too brief video):

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpB55w9CNCM

In Old London Town, Warbling Women & Other Anti-Israel Hate Symbols

A couple of videos of the anti-Israel march and rally in London yesterday (see previous post) are among several that have caught Daphne's antipodean Sunday morning eye.

I include the urls in case you are obliged to watch them at source on You Tube.

First, raucous cries of "Free, Free ..." set the tone in this very long live-streamed video from Ruptly TV.  At 25:33 a brave band of Zionist counter protesters with Israeli flags hoves into view:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfCr5bb0pJY

(To quote the uploader:
Pro-Palestine organisations have called for a national march and rally on Saturday, November 4 in London on the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration.The rally is being met with resistance from pro-Israel supporters who are celebrating the occasion.Video on Demand: http://www.ruptly.tv
Contact: cd@ruptly.tv)

Second, a veritable river of Israel haters of all kinds pass by: from about 6:01 "Campaign Choirs Singing for Palestine" a semi-comedic touch as  an inordinate number of reality-challenged white-haired warblers witter about a certain wall that saves Israeli lives from terrorists:

 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ljZ0UbpAHk

"Just 67 Words": Theresa May Extols the Balfour Declaration While the Usual Suspects Twist & Shout

A video nearly 30 minutes long, and well worth it:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KsfMjCPzpo

But oh, what gnashing of teeth and wringing of hands from those who hate Israel and curse the Balfour Declaration.

What odious distortion from Rashid Khalidi, Columbia University's Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies, for instance:

'Predictably, Khalidi limited the "indigenous population" to Arabs and ignored the Jewish people's historical claim to the land as recognized in the Balfour Declaration. Instead, he maintained "the Zionist Movement was a colonialist enterprise in search of a metropolitan sponsor" that was "implanting" and "fostering" the Jewish people "at the expense of the Palestinians."

Khalidi's terminology reflected his past as a PLO propagandist. His use of "indigenous" echoed the fabricated claims of the Palestinian Authority (PA)'s Mahmoud Abbas that the Palestinians are descended from the Canaanites, who predated the ancient Hebrews. Similarly, his term "implanting" mirrored PA political commentator Fathi Buzia's allegation that Britain "creat[ed] and implant[ed] a fabricated, thieving entity upon the Palestinian land" and PA school textbooks, which refer to Israel "as an imperial colonial implant."

The lecture epitomized the politicization of contemporary Middle East studies: by twisting a legitimate topic—the Balfour Declaration—into anti-Zionist, anti-Israel propaganda, Khalidi distorted the past in order to influence the present. His ahistorical claim that the Jewish people are not the indigenous population of Israel is a transparent effort to delegitimize Israel as a Jewish state. There should be no room in academe for such hucksterism masquerading as scholarship.'  Read more here

Here's a bunch of Israel-haters blinkered to Arab rejectionism.  What a surprise (not) that big trades unions, life blood of the Labour Party, are joining in the twisting and the shouting against Israel. Loathsome Ken Loach and schoolgirl Leanne Mohamad, inter alia, are also being trotted out:

Speakers at the rally [update: see my next post for the march] will include:

Dr Mustafa Barghouti / Ken Loach / Andy Slaughter MP / Mick Whelan  General Secretary ASLEF / Gail Cartmail TUC /  Matt Wrack   General Secretary FBU /  Margaret McKee  President Unison /  John Pilger  / Senator Paul Gavan Sinn Fein / Leanne Mohamad / Hugh Lanning PSC / Asad Rehman, War on Want / Reem Kelani / Philipa Harvey NEU-NUT Section / Daoud Abdalah BMI / Ajmal Masrour Imam & broadcaster / Prof Manuel Hassassian / Tariq Ali / Salma Yacoub / Dave Randall /  Hawiyya Dance Company / John Nicolson SNP – And many more to be announced.

Organised by Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), Palestinian Forum in Britain (PFB), Friends of Al Aqsa (FOA), Stop the War Coalition (STW), Muslim Association of Britain (MAB).

Supported by Unite the Union, UNISON, National Education Union- NUT Section, GMB, ASLEF, RMT, FBU, UCU, PCS, CWU, Europal Forum, CND, Pax Christi, APCUK, Kairos UK, Friends of Sabeel UK, ICAHD UK, Olive, Amos Trust, APCUK.
https://www.palestinecampaign.org/events/national-rally-central-london/

Our old friend the vicar, meanwhile, has been visiting Jerusalem and Bethlehem (he really does get around, doesn't he?!), where a number of anti-Israel events have been taking place:

  More samples from the vicar's current Balfour-related postings (by no means all):

Mocking a wall that saves Jewish lives ... nice Christian way to behave, vicar.

(Daphne is far too ladylike to call our old mate a non-kosher prick.)

What a bummer, after all that effort, vicar!

A Fashion Icon in Black & White

What she's wearing,  Baroness [Jenny] Tonge:

And the Aussie Sizer, Father Dave Smith:

Here's the lowdown on this staple of many an Israel-demoniser's wardrobe:

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SUmXUcYwsE

And on this, the centenary of the Balfour Declaration,  a fascinating lecture by the late Sir Martin Gilbert (the Irene and Hyman Kreitman Annual Memorial Lecture on May 30, 2011 during the 41st Annual Board of Governors Meeting at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev) entitled Sowing the Seeds of Jewish Statehood: Britain and Palestine, 1909-1922

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kub6d-ik6w

Be warned: it's about 52 minutes long.  Perhaps best listened to while pottering about.
Hat tip: JH

Great talk by historian Stephen Schama: "Israel's life is Hitler's failure"

Meanwhile, in retaliation for the creation of Israel and its refusal to die,  just three current social media displays of pique and antisemitism out of a vast number, the first by this funny chap:

Bibi: " Do Not Test the Will of the State of Israel or the Army of Israel"

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara attended a memorial ceremony to honor the Australian and New Zealand soldiers who fell during World War One. The ceremony is part of the events marking 100 years since the battle for Be'er Sheba. Also attending the ceremony were Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and his wife and New Zealand Governor General Patsy Reddy and her husband.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEDdgs3GFdc

Transcript of Bibi's speech:

"Thank you, ANZAC soldiers and the families of the brave Aussies and Kiwis who fought here and died here.

Nearly 4,000 years ago, Abraham came to Be'er Sheba, the City of Seven Wells. Exactly 100 years ago, brave ANZAC soldiers liberated Beer Sheba for the sons and daughters of Abraham and opened the gateway for the Jewish people to reenter the stage of history. The heroism of your fallen men will never be forgotten. The brave soldiers who are buried here played a crucial role in defeating the Ottoman Empire, liberating the Holy Land, ending 400 years of Ottoman rule in one great dash.

This momentous occasion was a historic milestone in the natural kinship between our peoples. When I say natural, I don’t just mean the way we address life and each other, that easy informality, that warmth. That was evident from the moment our people met your people. I mean something deeper, because there’s a historical significance of what happened here. ANZAC soldiers went on to capture Jerusalem, Tiberius, Megiddo, then continued northward. They were actually retracing the footsteps of the heroes of the Bible. They were stepping on the verses of the Bible, and they knew it, and their clergy who spoke of this so movingly a moment ago, they knew it too.

This partnership began two years earlier, in 1915, with a great defeat. In the defeat at Gallipoli, two things were forged. One, the absolute resolve of the ANZAC forces to redeem their fallen brethren and establish this glorious victory here. And the second thing that was forged was the first meeting between ANZAC fighters and Jewish fighters, the first Jewish fighters who stood shoulder to shoulder with them in Gallipoli, the first Jewish fighting force in 2,000 years. And that continued here with the Jewish Legion that helped liberate Palestine here, in this campaign that we mark today. This was a point, a partnership that has historic significance today.

When I joined the Israeli army 50 years ago, I joined our Special Forces, I was given a broad hat. It was called an Australian hat. It was very good to shield ourselves from the sun. We also sat next to eucalyptus trees that came from Australia. And we learned about the ethos of courage of Australian and New Zealand soldiers. We talked about it. We drank it in. It stood as a shining example for us. It was an example of the spirit of fortitude and courage, and the willingness to act in the defense of our people and our values. These are the values that guide us today as well. We saw here in Beer Sheba 800 cavalry go against 4,000 embedded Turks with machine guns, with bunkers. The few won against the many.

That’s the spirit of the army of Israel. It stands today. We set out a simple policy: We seek peace with all our neighbors, but we will not tolerate any attacks on our sovereignty, on our people, on our land, whether from the air, from the sea, from the ground or below the ground. We attack those who seek to attack us. And those who contemplate that, I strongly advise you: Do not test the will of the State of Israel or the army of Israel.

When the Light Horse were charging here, their commanders were worried about the absence of water. Today we do not worry about that. A few months ago, we signed an agreement on water between Australia and Israel. It can apply to New Zealand. We can make water. We can change the world. What we established here with the rise of Israel, the rise of technology, the rise of ingenuity, is that we can cooperate to better the lives of our peoples and of all people everywhere. That too we should remember at the Battle of Beer Sheba. I believe that those soldiers who fell here would be proud of the deep and enduring alliance between our countries today.

As then, today we stand on the same side of history, on the right side of history. We stand for progress; we stand for peace; we stand for democracy. We stand against tyranny and terror. Israel salutes the sacrifice of these brave soldiers. We will never forget them.

We will forever honor and treasure their memory."

 While on the subject of New Zealand, see here

"She Thus Displays Her Profound Ignorance of Jewish, Arab and Middle Eastern History"

Here's Emily Thornberry, Corbyn's shadow foreign secretary, telling Middle East Eye's editor-in-chief David Hearst and columnist Peter Oborne 

"I don’t think we celebrate the Balfour Declaration but I think we have to mark it because I think it was a turning point in the history of that area and I think probably the most important way of marking it is to recognise Palestine"

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uJERCQjQ5U

And here's (hat tip: Christians United for Israel UK) Ms Thornberry in July, clashing with Conservative MPs regarding the the Middle East, Corbyn's "friends" and the recognition of a Palestinian state.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Msh2SqpQvh8

Is it any wonder, then, that  Marvellous Melanie sees Thornberry's stance as emblematic of the malevolence Corbyn's Labour Party is evincing towards Israel and by extension towards the Jewish People?

To quote from Ms Phillips's denunciation:

'When Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn refused to attend this week’s dinner in London to mark the centenary of the Balfour Declaration, a dinner to which Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been invited as the guest of Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May, Corbyn said Labour’s shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry would attend in his place.

Now remarks made by Thornberry inescapably imply that, like Corbyn, she too regrets the fact that Israel was ever created. Instead she supports its mortal enemies whose agenda remains Israel’s destruction....

Her support for the existence of Israel is, by her own lights, conditional on the existence of a state of Palestine. She thus displays her profound ignorance of Jewish, Arab and Middle Eastern history by assuming that people called the Palestinians were entitled to the same promise of a national homeland. ....

And of course, a Palestine state alongside Israel has been on offer repeatedly since 1936 – yet it has been the Arabs and “Palestinians” who have refused it while the Jews have always accepted it. There could be a state of Palestine tomorrow if the Palestinians would accept Israel’s right to exist alongside it. Instead, they want such a state solely in order to destroy Israel altogether....'

Read all of Ms Phillips's article here

Meanwhile, anti-Israel Jewish-blogger-married-to-a-Christian-vicar Robert Cohen ("Micah's  Paradigm Shift") and his friends on social media are celebrating a letter he wrote to the Manchester University authorities:

And:

David Singer: Balfour Declaration Falsehoods Fuel Jew-Hatred and Israel-Bashing

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

He writes:

The centenary of the Balfour Declaration issued on 2 November 1917 is being used to unleash a barrage of falsehoods designed to denigrate the Jewish people and delegitimise the Jewish State of Israel.

Among those current egregious falsehoods:

1. Raja Zaatry – an official of the High Follow-up Committee – the Arab community’s leadership body in Israel – has asserted:

 “In 1917 less than 10% of the population was Jewish and more than 90% Arab. The British gave to the Jews something that didn’t belong to them”

The British Government gave nothing to the Jews in 1917 other than its “declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations" expressed in the Balfour Declaration. Palestine in 1917 still remained under Turkey’s rule as part of the 400 years old Ottoman Empire. 

 2. Sir Vincent Fean – British consul general to Jerusalem between 2010 and 2014 – reportedly said the UK should uphold its commitment to helping achieve a two-state solution promised in the Balfour Declaration – if only to prevent radicalization at home – stating

“I firmly believe that this unresolved issue contributes to radicalization in our own country among the Muslim community and if only for that self-interested reason we should think of doing something about it.”

The Balfour Declaration promised no two-state solution.

Islamic State has caused Muslim radicalization in Britain.

3. The Balfour Apology Campaign and the Palestinian Return Centre – protesting the Royal Albert Hall being used to host a Balfour Declaration Centenary event on 7 November – have urged the public to sign a letter containing the following statement:

“The 1917 Balfour Declaration directly caused the 1948 Arab-Israeli War where Israel ethnically cleansed 750,000 Palestinians and then established a state in Palestine.”

The 1948 Arab-Israeli War was directly caused by six Arab armies from Egypt, Syria, Transjordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Iraq invading Palestine in total violation of international law. No invasion – no war.

 4. University of Manchester academic Nick Thoburn grabbed some media space by reportedly saying he was dismayed that the University had allowed a Balfour Declaration commemoration event to take place on its campus – adding for good measure:

"Lord Balfour (declared), chillingly, that Zionism was 'of far profounder import than the desire and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land'" 

Chillingly – our news-grabbing academic selectively misquoted what Lord Balfour actually said:

“The Four Great Powers are committed to Zionism. And Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age-long traditions, in present needs, in future hopes, of far profounder import than the desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land”

Nick appears to have been engaging in deliberate spin.

Nick should be looking for another job outside academia if this is the standard of his intellectual expertise. 

 5. Ambassador Jonathan Allen – UK deputy permanent representative to the UN – told the Security Council on 17 October:

“And let us remember, there are two halves of Balfour, the second half of which has not been fulfilled. There is therefore unfinished business.”

Ambassador Allen was spouting pure unadulterated fiction.

 There are no two halves of the Balfour Declaration.

There is however “unfinished business”: allocating sovereignty in the last remaining 5 per cent of Palestine between Jordan and Israel – the two successor States in Palestine – as was first envisaged by Article 25 of the 1922 League of Nations Mandate for Palestine.

The sooner this business is concluded – the sooner the Arab-Jewish conflict can be resolved.

It surely is time to end 100 years of relentlessly hounding 15 million Jews world-wide and falsely and misleadingly lambasting their tiny Jewish State.