I received the following email yesterday from [email protected]
russian email? But i’ll write to u in English..
Not only you are an ugly looking man,but you are born dickhead.heard your satanic speech against Israel and how you hate it.U deserve death.ASAP
I replied as follows
As I presume you feel the poor children of Gaza also deserve death, I am in good company.
If you want to try to kill me, I live at 31 Sinclair Gardens, West Kensington, London W14 0AU.
Nearest tube is Shepherds Bush. I do hope that is helpful.
Admire your courage for free speech, Craig. Not sure about giving your address out to these nutters, though.
"Not only you are an ugly looking man,but you are born dickhead"
That was wrote by a female hand Watson.
I think the "propheciesandbiblecodes" bit should have been a bit of a clue. I had a quick gander at the site: as one would expect, hateful and completely divorced from reality.
I can report crazier than that:
"All civilians living in Gaza are collectively guilty for Kassam attacks on Sderot, former Sephardi chief rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu has written in a letter to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
Eliyahu ruled that there was absolutely no moral prohibition against the indiscriminate killing of civilians during a potential massive military offensive on Gaza aimed at stopping the rocket launchings.
…
Rather, he advocated carpet bombing the general area from which the Kassams were launched, regardless of the price in Palestinian life."
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=118052…
I'm with Mike on publicising your address. At the very least, would strongly advise you to remove the details from the website. Would hate to have anything happen to you or Nadira just because some hate-filled goon happens to know where you live.
Mike, Ed
Thanks for your concern. But I think it is more important to show you cannot be intimidated.
Reminds me of Richard Dawkins reading out his hate mail:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=AxdxZ47JouU
(my favourite is the person who hopes he gets knocked down by a church van).
"I think it is more important to show you cannot be intimidated."
I don't think you have anything more to prove to this end, Craig.
Craig,
I've had some of these too. I shouldn't have told the wife about it. She worries, which is why I like the anonymity of the web I suppose.
Whilst I'm sure you could quite easily be found, I'm not sure about making it easier than absolutely necessary though. One would imagine that 'mere' words wouldn't pose such a threat to people. Unfortunately we live in strange times, a time of flux. Take care. I'd hate to have to gird my sword again and seek to avenge your untimely demise.
If somebody REALLY wanted to harm you, they would hardly send this kind of mail. And if somebody REALLY wanted to harm you, it wouldn't be too difficult to find out where you live.
The nearest tube is a nice touch.
I'll start reading your new book tonight.
Craig – I don't agree with your politics but I think you are unwise to post your address. There are some weird people out there!
Thank you, Eddie.
Dear Craig,
Your threatener has excellent competition in his own ranks.
Have any of you ever seen this site:
http://stoptheism.com/
???!!!!
That's an alarming site Miguel.
I misinterpreted the URL as "Stop Theism", which would have been more sensible – see my post above.
Don't give SIS an excuse for an accident that can be pointed elsewhere.
I suppose it might be a waste of time to reason with this particular interlocutor, but here goes:
Hi propheciesandbiblecodes,
What was it about Craig's speech that you found 'Satanic'? I suppose this is a difficult discussion for everyone to join in, given that it requires your ideological opponents to believe in God, Satan, heaven and hell and so forth. And those of us who criticise Israel, well some of us do believe in those religious and spiritual concepts, and some of us don't. So, perhaps, a different word might be helpful here?
Either way, it is easier to respond to the charge that Craig hates Israel. I can't speak for him, but it is worth looking at what 'hating Israel' actually might mean. In the context in which Craig spoke, I am confident I can speak for the whole demonstration when I say it does *not* mean a hatred of the Israeli people. Most groups opposed to the current slaughter of civilians in Gaza are also anti-racists, which means that they are not anti-Semitic at all. In fact, another speaker on the podium specifically made this point.
But if "Israel" is the name for the state in which a planned military operation is entitled to incur expected civilian deaths, and to do so at the rate at which they are occurring in Gaza right now, I'd say it is a perfectly legitimate political position to hate it. Furthermore, it is specifically not an expression of racism.
It is also legitimate to say that the existence of the state of Israel as it now stands is unjust, and cannot go on. This cannot be disputed on either side: if you examine maps of the "growth" of Israel into Palestinian territory since 1967, you will see how much of "Israel" in fact does not belong to them. Political factions on your side would be welcome to dispute this, but they would only embarrass themselves in doing so.
Furthermore, I understood Craig's speech (whilst I was shivering in the freezing cold) to underscore his support for a single-state solution, which is also an acceptable viewpoint, albeit one considered by our ideological enemies in Tel Aviv and Washington as "unacceptable". I suspect you wouldn't agree with it either, but you might stop to consider *why* people outside of Israel would be so in disagreement with it. Firstly, it is not in tune with elite goals: Arab democratic influence over this key US client state would not be welcome in Washington, as it would almost certainly make strategic control of the area much harder. This makes your position a key component of capitalist goals, which is a rather strange perspective for a Christian: most of the preachers I have heard have been rather keen on warning congregations about the *excesses* of capitalism and consumerism, not instructing their followers to go out and support them!
Also, there is the influence of the "End Timers" too (I can't view your website at the moment, but I suspect you might be one of them given the address of your site). It is said that End Timers, who believe that "the end of the world is nigh", also think that if Israel is able to extend its borders over the whole of Palestine, that a prophesy in Revelations will come true and Christ will come again. Now, whilst Americans and others are free to think this way in private, if they effectively call for the ethnic cleansing of a population in order to achieve this racist goal, then other people have a right to hate these views. One fervently hopes that you don't also subscribe to such an awful position.
Ultimately though, the PR machine of Israel is suffering greatly. Whilst money and resources are at their fingertips (and much of the world's mainstream media), the marches around the world have happened because people don't believe Israel's and America's lies. Hackers sympathetic to Israel hacked an organising website in the UK, whilst you seem to be keen on making death threats. None of these things are particularly democratic; in fact they smack rather of the extremism that I imagine you would claim to hate. Perhaps if you can come back to a more discursive position, you might be able to see other people's perspectives, and have some sympathy for the civilians being killed and injured in large numbers through no fault of their own.
If you are reading this website, perhaps I can encourage you to post a considered and thoughtful response, to me, to Craig, or to anyone else who posts here?
Regards,
Jon (West Midlands, UK)
Just noticed that great democratic country Israel has banned two arab parties from the next election….Bet thats not on the BBC….
Sadly, the world is full of sickos from all sides of the religious and political ideological spectrums.
Btw, on Israel's invasion of Gaza: I didn't have the slightest clue that the Palestinians were sitting on a huge gas reserve in Gaza until I read Michel Chossudovsky's War and Natural Gas: The Israeli Invasion and Gaza's Offshore Gas Fields.
[…] The military invasion of the Gaza Strip by Israeli Forces bears a direct relation to the control and ownership of strategic offshore gas reserves.
This is a war of conquest. Discovered in 2000, there are extensive gas reserves off the Gaza coastline.
[…]
Whoa there Craig – I with the boys on this – not about being intimidated but some of these peoples are genuinely nuts, wakko, loopy, sandwich short of a picnic, flake short of a 99. None of my business if yer know, that's what you decide, but seriously man, knock it out pretty please with a cherry on top.
I wouldn't worry about threats from the person who sent you that email. I doubt that they hold a passport. In any case, they're probably too busy fighting demons in their own country or head.
Have you seen their website? These people are more scared than scary.
Photographic Evidence that Barack Obama is a Human/Reptilian Hybrid, Part 1
http://propheciesandbiblecodes.ning.com/forum/top…
Tom –
No, I hadn't looked. Thanks – that's hilarious!
Hi, Craig;
Y'know I had a funny feeling I had seen you around locally, and now you've confirmed it. Maybe I subconsciously saw you pootling around Morrisons. I'm on Sinclair Road. Feel free to email me if you ever need a hand. I never knew I was so close to such a sane, principled peace-warrior. You've had my respect ever since I first heard of you, which was just before HMG punished you for saying what needed to be said about those criminally insane murderous thugs in Uzbekistan back in 2004.
Seriously though (but of course it's moot, since they've always known where you live anyway. All our UK Internet traffic gets routed through Israeli servers owned by a Mossad front company which I discovered myself one night), I'd worry about those IDF/Mossad bastards across the road at Westfield in the new Israel Shop which appeared suddenly. Thanks to George Galloway for the tip-off!
I don't suppose there's any point in removing your address now except to deter any local pro-Zionist head-cases from proving further what vicious pigs they really are. You're more dangerous alive than dead, Craig. We all need you right now.
Incidentally, isn't it very telling that Nick Griffin has openly supported these Israeli Sturmabteilung in their genocidal rampage? There are quite a lot of BNP supporters in the area, so mind your back.
PETE
Craig,
You're getting a lot of grief. Perhaps I can express my support and at the same time take some of the burden onto my own shoulders. Bring 'em on!
It's difficult to know whether to weep or laugh. I don't think it's got anything to do with 'anti-Semetism' not really. This is just a useful tool or tactic in the propaganda war. Which in modern conflicts are of paramount importance. The idea seems to be to waste both space and time in these pointless skermishes, so one takes ones eye off the bigger, strategic picture, and one drowns under an avalanche of detail.
The posts attacking you, and it's happened to me too, are part of war of attrition. The point is not to debate, but to destroy and you have with your public statement 'Zionism is bullshit!' have taken sides, whether you accept this or not, that is the result.
The banning of two arab, or perhaps more accurately, Palestinian political parties from taking part in the coming elections in Israel, is an 'interesting' development and indicates the direction Israeli democracy is moving.
These parties have been attacked and called 'traitors' and 'terrorists' for their opposition to the invasion of Gaza, demands for equal human rights, support for freedom of speech and their questioning of the validity, in a democracy, of the specifically 'Jewish' character of the state. These attitudes have caused them to be dubbed 'a threat' to Israel's etnic and social cohesion and it's 'special' identity.
The mantra that Israel is and will always be a 'Jewish' state, ruled by and for Jews, is highly problematic and an explosive issue, which cuts to the quick of the entire Zionist project. For example roughly 20% of Israel's population are Palestinian arabs, who are also semites. They do not have 20% of the seats in the Israeli parliament, far from it in fact. They are not exactly encouraged to vote, let's put it that way. So, if this ruling by the central Israeli election commitee stands, arabs will only be allowed to vote for 'Jewish' parties!
If this happened in any other 'Western-style' democracy it would be considered outrageous.
The arab or Palesinian birthrate is extremely high. In a few decades they will probably form the majority in Israel and pushing them to one side won't be so easy, at least not in a normal democracy. Israelis call it the demographic timebomb. But it'll never get that far. The Israelis will drive the Palestinians out, one way or another, if the international community doesn't step in before it's too late and save Israel from itself.
What happens to Israel when it has a 'Palestinian' majority? What happens to the dream of Zionism? I don't believe Zionism is compatible with democracy anymore. So Zionism isn't just bullshit, it's arguably something far worse when taken to extremes and in Israel it is moving in a extreme direction. Zionism is evolving into a form of racism, if it isn't already, or perhaps it always was, only most of us who weren't of the receiving end didn't notice.